Flesh and blood

Organ transplantation is one of the most dramatic interventions in modern medicine. Since the 1950s, thousands of people have lived with “new” hearts, kidneys, lungs, corneas, and other organs and tissues transplanted into their bodies. But, even before the 1950s, American surgeons had attempted to treat catastrophic disease or injuries using tissues and organs retrieved from the bodies of other people and other species. Long before the success of kidney transplantation in the 1950s and heart transplantation in the 1960s, many Americans looked to the potential of these new surgeries to restore lost function and repair the ravages of illness and injury.