Few can have been unmoved by the story of Jeni Stepien, as she walked down the aisle with a man who had received her father's heart 10 years previously (Alexander, 2016); 3-year-old Rosie Day received a heart transplant earlier this year, her own heart having been weakened by cardiomyopathy (Creed, 2016). Up to 200 heart transplants are performed across the UK each year (British Heart Foundation (BHF), 2016). Worldwide, approximately 3500 heart transplants are carried out annually (SynCardia Systems, 2016). Throughout history, however, the heart was considered sacred and untouchable. Aristotle is quoted as saying ‘the heart alone of all viscera cannot withstand serious injury’ (McRae, 2014: 2), and this belief persisted well into the nineteenth century, with Billroth, a respected Viennese surgeon stating that ‘a surgeon who tries to suture a heart wound deserves to lose the esteem of his colleagues' (McRae, 2014: 2). What happened to revolutionise our thinking of the heart? When did we lose such timidity about the heart? The South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard helped transform opinions when he performed the world's first heart transplant in 1967, and he rightly deserves recognition and respect for this. Many others, however, from surgeons and scientists to anencephalic babies and heart recipients who died, also made a huge contribution. Just as the Soviet Union and the United States raced to put a man on the moon, another race was taking place at a similar time in history to transplant a human heart. In this article, we will first hear the winner's story, and then the lesser known stories from some equally important contenders and contributors.

Helen Cowan - Elderly Care Nurse and Freelance Writer, Oxford