James D. Hardy (May 14, 1918 – February 19, 2003) was an American surgeon who performed the world's first lung transplant into John Russell, who lived 18 days.
[5][6][7] The consent form did not disclose that a chimpanzee heart might be used, although Hardy stated that he had discussed this with Rush's stepsister.
He was awarded the Master of Medical Science in physiological chemistry by the University of Pennsylvania in 1951 for his research on using heavy water for measuring body fluids.
Hardy also led the team responsible for performing a double-lung transplant that left the heart in place, in 1987.
To complicate matters, Russell was a prisoner at the Mississippi State Penitentiary serving a life sentence for murder.
However, authorities of the state government were contacted privately, and they indicated that a very favorable attitude might be adopted if the patient were to contribute to human progress in this way.
"[12] Prior to the surgery, Russell would awake at night coughing up bloody sputum until he was blue in the face.
[3] Thoracic resident Martin Dalton sought and received permission from the family of a recently deceased heart attack patient to use their left lung.
He used an endotracheal tube to keep the lungs ventilated and injected heparin into the heart to prevent clotting.
[3] On June 11, 1963, when Hardy and his team opened Russell's chest to begin the transplant, they saw that his cancer had spread beyond the left lung.
[3] The book Second Wind: Oral Histories of Lung Transplant Survivors (2012) states that University of Mississippi Medical Center had unreliable blood banking, no intensive care unit, only limited 24-hour lab support, a weak anesthesia program, and most critically for Russell, no artificial kidney machine.
[4] At the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Hardy transplanted the heart of a chimpanzee into the chest of a dying Boyd Rush and shocked it with a defibrillator to resume beating at approximately 2:00 a.m. on Friday, January 24, 1964.
[7][15] Hardy had been inspired by the limited success of Keith Reemtsma at Tulane University in Louisiana who in the early 1960s transplanted chimpanzee kidneys into thirteen human patients.
[8][16] Boyd Rush was a 68-year-old retired upholsterer described as a "deaf mute" who was referred to Hardy by a community hospital on Jan. 21, 1964.
Thompson signed a consent form which stated, "I agree to the insertion of a suitable heart transplant if such should be available at the time.
However, the legal definition of death at the time required that the heartbeat stop, and this trauma victim's heart still beat.
Around 11:00 pm on Thursday, Jan. 23, Rush went into shock with low blood pressure, and Hardy took him into the operating room.
Hardy polled the other four doctors who were assisting him in the surgery, on whether they should continue with the transplant knowing that they would now use the heart of one of the chimpanzees and would likely receive substantial public criticism.
[10] Just after 2:00 am in the early morning hours of Friday, Jan. 24, 1964, Hardy completed the stitching to connect the chimpanzee heart into Rush's chest.
"[22][23] At that point, the Mississippi Medical Center revealed the crucial detail that the donor heart had come from a chimpanzee.
They had four daughters – Dr. Louise Roeska-Hardy, professor of philosophy in Heidelberg and Frankfurt, Germany, Dr. Julia Ann Hardy, psychiatrist in Michigan, Dr. Bettie Winn Hardy, clinical psychologist and director of the eating disorders program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, Dallas and Dr. Katherine H. Little, medical director of the Diagnostic Center for Digestive Diseases at Baylor University Medical Center, Dallas.