In grafting skin or body organs from one human being to another, the best that surgeons can hope for with their present skills is a temporary "take." After a while, the recipient's system develops antibodies against the transplant and it withers away.* A transplanted kidney may serve as a crutch until the patient's own kidneys can recover, as apparently happened in the famed case of Chicago's Mrs. Howard Tucker (TIME, June 11, 1951). But last week Boston surgeons had the chance of a lifetime: to transplant a kidney to the donor's identical twin brother, with every hope of lasting success.
Richard Herrick,...
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