"The time is ripe for a human heart transplant," cardiac researcher Norm Shumway was quoted as saying in a 1967 issue of a medical journal. "The required conditions being that a recipient and a compatible donor turn up simultaneously."21

Whether or not they read Shumway's interview, many cardiac surgeons believed it to be true, and some even dreamed of being the first to perform a human heart transplant. After all, a lot was at stake:

the chance to make medical history while prolonging a life that would otherwise be lost to heart disease, the development of a cutting-edge medical program at their hospitals, and a chance to gain international renown.

Much had happened in the field of cardiac surgery between the mid-1950s and 1967. New developments had turned once complex operations into routine pro- cedures, saving countless lives. Open-heart surgery programs had been introduced in...