Thread by @FredWuMD

It's remarkable how quickly heart transplantation took off after Barnard reported his first on December 3, 1967. By August 15, 1969, over a period of less than 2 years, there had been 144 heart transplants performed worldwide (excluding xenotransplants) in 20 countries!

https://twitter.com/FredWuMD/status/1069617729269719040

Just for fun, let's see if you guys can guess the order in which countries performed their first respective heart transplants... I'll start with Christiaan Barnard's first transplant in South Africa and go through them in chronological order. I think you might be surprised!

#1.
Date: December 3, 1967
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Surgeon: Christiaan Barnard

#2.
Date: December 6, 1967
Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Surgeon: Adrian Kantrowitz

#3.
Date: February 16, 1968
Location: Bombay, India 🇮🇳
Surgeon: P. K. Sen

#4.
Date: April 27, 1968
Location: Paris, France 🇫🇷
Surgeon: Christian Cabrol

#5.
Date: May 3, 1968
Location: London, England 🇬🇧
Surgeon: Donald Ross

#6.
Date: May 26, 1968
Location: São Paulo, Brazil 🇧🇷
Surgeon: Euryclides de Jesus Zerbini

#7.
Date: May 31, 1968
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina 🇦🇷
Surgeon: Miguel Bellizi

#7. This one's a tie, actually.
Date: May 31, 1968
Location: Montreal, Canada 🇨🇦
Surgeon: Pierre Grondin

#9.
Date: June 28, 1968
Location: Valparaiso, Chile 🇨🇱
Surgeon: Jorge Kaplán

#10.
Date: July 9, 1968
Location: Bratislava, Czechoslovakia 🇨🇿
Surgeon: Karol Siska

#11.
Date: August 8, 1968
Location: Sapporo, Japan 🇯🇵
Surgeon: Juro Wada

#12.
Date: September 17, 1968
Location: Madrid, Spain 🇪🇸
Surgeon: Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, 10th Marquis of Villaverde

#13.
Date: September 18, 1968
Location: Caracas, Venezuela 🇻🇪
Surgeon: Julián Morales Rocha Pérez

#14.
Date: October 23, 1968
Location: Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺
Surgeon: Harry Windsor

#15.
Date: November 5, 1968
Location: Leningrad, USSR
Surgeon: Alexander Vishnevsky

#16.
Date: November 24, 1968
Location: Ankara, Turkey 🇹🇷
Surgeon: Kemal Bayazit

#17.
Date: December 5, 1968
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel 🇮🇱
Surgeon: Morris Levy

#18.
Date: January 4, 1969
Location: Warsaw, Poland
Surgeon: Jan Moll

#19.
Date: February 13, 1969
Location: Munich, Germany 🇩🇪
Surgeons: Fritz Sebening, Werner Klinner

#20.
Date: April 14, 1969
Location: Zurich, Switzerland 🇨🇭
Surgeon: Åke Senning