1968 - Medicine

Medicine

Christiaan Barnard performs the most successful heart transplant to date January 2, giving retired Cape Town dentist Philip Blaiberg, 58, the heart of a young man of mixed race and thereby creating a sensation throughout South Africa (see 1967); the heart continues to function for 19 months and 5 days, partly because Barnard's team has reduced the amount of antirejection drugs. Barnard will continue his practice until 1983, when arthritis will abort his career; heart transplants will become standard in the next 30 years through the introduction of more powerful antirejection drugs, the procedure will be employed an estimated 100,000 times worldwide by the end of the century, 85 to 90 percent of patients will survive for at least 1 year, 75 percent for 5 years or more.

Houston cardiovascular surgeon Denton (Arthur) Cooley, 47, performs the first successful U.S. heart transplant May 2, removing the damaged heart of a 47-year-old male patient and replacing it with the heart of a 15-year-old female who has died of a brain injury. Cooley performs four similar transplants within 4 weeks (two patients die subsequently of other causes); he will use the first artificial heart next year as a stopgap measure to keep a patient alive for 64 hours at the Texas Heart Institute until a natural donor heart can be found and transplanted (see Jarvik, 1982).

The Medical Care Act signed into law July 1 by Canada's prime minister Lester Pearson quickly becomes known as Medicare and will be completely universal by April 1, 1972 (see 1964; U.S. Medicare, 1964; Hall Commission Review, 1979).

The United States has only 22,231 reported cases of measles, down from 400,000 in 1962, as a result of the Enders vaccine (see 1962).

Aerobics by Ottawa-born U.S. Air Force major Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., 37, launches Americans on a fitness exercise kick that will lead to a craze for jogging, swimming, bicycling, and aerobic dancing to stimulate heart and lung functions by forcing the body to consume up to 50 milliliters of oxygen in 12 minutes. Cooper's books will be translated into 39 languages and sell millions of copies (see 1971).

Johnson & Johnson chairman Robert Wood Johnson dies at New York January 30 at age 74; former U.S. surgeon general Thomas Parran Jr. at Pittsburgh February 16 at age 75; penicillin pioneer Howard Walter Florey (Lord Florey) of a heart attack at London February 21 at age 69; Dr. Scholl foot-product company founder William M. Scholl of pneumonia at Chicago March 3 at age 85.