Surgery: Spare Parts from Chimp to Man

Less than two months ago, Jefferson Davis, 44, was edging perilously close to certain death. A Negro dock worker, he had been in New Orleans' Charity Hospital since January with steadily worsening kidney disease. Doctors had kept him alive by dialysis, pumping salt and sugar solutions into his abdominal cavity to leach out the body's metabolic poisons. But this process could not keep him going indefinitely. And his doctors could find no human donor to give Davis new hope for life.

Even though transplantation of a kidney from man to man is still highly experimental and seldom successful for long, Charity...

Want the full story?

Subscribe Now

Subscribe
Subscribe

Learn more about the benefits of being a TIME subscriber

If you are already a subscriber sign up — registration is free!