Research Catalog

Title

Christiaan Barnard : the surgeon who dared : the man and the story of heart transplantation / David K.C. Cooper.

Author

Cooper, D. K. C. (David K. C.), 1939-

Publication

• [Stroud, Gloucestershire] : Fonthill, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

543 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color); 24 cm

Summary

"From humble beginnings as a ̀barefoot boy' in a small town in the heart of South Africa, he learned to mix with presidents and prime ministers, with royalty and popes, and quickly embraced the high-life of the jet-set who surrounded him. Throughout life, he was a serial womanizer, bedding famous European film stars (and their secretaries). He survived three tempestuous marriages and divorces, each wife becoming younger than the last until their age difference reached 40 years. This scientifically-trained surgeon called on the services of a ¹itchdoctor' (a sangoma)-unsuccessfully-to help punish those who had contributed to the break-up of his second marriage. With no experience himself, he trained his daughter to become the second-ranked water skier in the world, though he was disappointed she never became world champion. Perhaps the immense effort he put into driving her to success accounted for the relative neglect of his oldest son, who, as a young doctor, suffered increasing depression until he died of a drug overdose at an early age. The surgeon pursued his goals in heart surgery despite a lifetime of pain from arthritis and a disability from asthma, which might eventually have killed him. Having established the first major heart surgery programme in Africa, he eventually became distracted by other interests until he was a mere shadow in his own department. Yet he remained in the public eye through his gifts for public speaking and as a writer..."--

Subjects

• Biographies
• Barnard, Christiaan, 1922-2001
• Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc
• Heart > Transplantation
• Transplant surgeons > South Africa > Biography

Genre/Form

Biographies.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN

• 9781781556399
• 1781556393

LCCN

99975314528

OCLC

• on1017804575
• 1017804575
• SCSB-8957851

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries