Donald Longmore: surgeon, physiologist, and leading member of the team that undertook Britain’s first human-to-human heart transplantation

bmj;383/nov28_6/p2792/FAF1faCredit: ANL/ShutterstockIf Donald Longmore had had his way, the first human-to-human heart transplantation would have been carried out in London, not Cape Town. News of Christiaan Barnard’s operation on Louis Washkanshy in the early hours of 3 December 1967 disappointed Longmore.He had spent up to three days a week in the previous four years at the Royal Veterinary College undertaking hundreds of experimental heart and heart and lung operations on animals.In 1966 he predicted in his book, Spare Part Surgery, published in 1968, that heart-lung and heart transplants would become routine within five years. A cardiac surgeon at the National Heart Hospital, Longmore even had a potential patient lined up. Bill Bradley, a wheelchair bound milkman, had had 25 operations. In a highly contentious decision, Longmore invited Bradley (introduced as “Mr X”) on to the TV show Barnard Faces His Critics.Screened in February 1968, it was reportedly “the most controversial…
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