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The National Institutes of Health also decided in 1963 that the eventual remedy for incurable heart disease must lie in a complete artificial heart, and set 1972 as the tentative target date for getting one to work. Last year N.I.H. concluded that this was unrealistic at this time, and dumped much of the $8,700,000 available into research grants for the perfection of "half-hearts"—devices to assist the left ventricle, or take over its work entirely for a time.
Both DeBakey and Kantrowitz have obtained good results with half-hearts in one or two cases. DeBakey's best patient, Mrs. Esperanza del Valle Vásquez, was on heart assist for ten days after the implantation of two artificial valves in her heart. Now she puts in an eight-hour day on her feet, running her Mexico City beauty parlor. On hearing about Washkansky last week, she burbled:
"How marvelous! I want to write to this man—I have so much to tell him." But Shumway insists that in 1,500 operations in which he has opened hearts to correct defects, he has seen not one patient who needed a heart-assist device. The N.I.H. project, he believes, is justifiable only as a step toward the complete artificial heart.
Since that achievement is years away, human-heart transplants will be a valuable intermediate stage. More will now be attempted and with far less misgiving. However stormy Louis Washkansky's near-future course might be, and whatever the ultimate fate of the transplant, the worldwide acclaim for Dr. Barnard's daring and his immediate success have initiated changes in both professional and public attitudes. Surgeons who did not want to take the risks attendant upon being first will now attempt transplants. More medically suitable recipients will be willing to accept a transplant with its inevitable hazards. And more people will be willing to sanction the gift of a heart to help an ailing fellow man.
*The South African designation for one of mixed racial origin.