Sir Magdi Yacoub

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a surgeon. Born in Egypt sixty years ago, he's recognized as one of the great pioneers of heart transplant surgery in this country. It's a position that has not been achieved without enormous controversy. Some of his experiments, such as when he kept a child alive by connecting him to a baboon, provoked public outcry. But these days his heart transplant operations enjoy a 90% success rate. If you don't want to do anything experimental, he said, you don't want to do anything new. You have to keep exploring the limits. He is Sir Magdi Yakou.

Presenter1:04

You could almost say these days, Professor Yacoub, that that heart transplants are are routine. Does that mean that in a sense you've stopped exploring the limits?

Sir Magdi Yacoub1:14

Not at all. Although there has been a lot of improvements and achievements in the transplantation field, there are still a lot of problems and a lot of areas which need to be explored, which are currently being explored. Problems like what we call chronic rejection and that the hearts develop a degree of coronary disease. So there is narrowing of the coronaries again. There are tumors, there could be cancer, there are rejection, infections. All right, it's not very common, but it needs to be eradicated.

Presenter1:54

So when it's said that you have a ninety percent success rate, what's that mean?

Sir Magdi Yacoub1:58

The ninety percent is in a subset of patients who have ideal characteristics. Sicker patients have anything like eighty percent or s sometimes even seventy percent.

Presenter2:11

But what does that mean that they live for a while?

Sir Magdi Yacoub2:12

That means that at the end of one year, eighty to ninety percent of the patients are alive, but they have a five-year chance of survival of something like sixty-five percent and a ten year of around fifty-five percent.

Presenter2:32

Is there an age limit? Is there an age after which you would not give someone a transplant?

Sir Magdi Yacoub2:38

The problem is the availability of donor organs and the competition between people on the waiting list and the age plays a very major role because you will always tend to give the heart to a younger individual. So we say that it is not practical now.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:00

to accept people over the age of sixty or sixty five sometimes, unless they are in a very good shape and they are going to improve dramatically to make use of this very, very rare resource.

Presenter3:17

Let's just pause there for a moment and tell me about the first record that you'd like to take to this desert island.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:24

I would like to take.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:26

Buquen from the well-tempered Glavier.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:29

By Johann Sebastian Bach.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:31

I find the music of Bach very, very soothing, and it sounds very, very simple, and yet it's absolutely perfect in every way, mathematically.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:46

the structure, the way he puts it together.

Sir Magdi Yacoub3:49

in a simple and masterly way.

Presenter4:51

Prelude and fugue number one from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, played by Sviatoslav Richter. Do do you play music in the operating theatre, Professor Joe?

Sir Magdi Yacoub5:00

Yes, we do. I find that very soothing and it uh stops people talking, which I can't stand, uh at least talking irrelevancies, and that sort of creates uh an atmosphere of concentration.

Presenter5:18

So you like silence. You're you're not someone who who, as you say, talks throughout an operation or likes to

Sir Magdi Yacoub5:25

And no, I I I adore silence, I find it a bliss.

Presenter5:30

We were we were talking about your patients. You have one, of course, the uh Derek Morris, who's uh Britain's longest surviving heart transplant patient. I think fifteen years ago now you gave him a new heart, didn't you?

Sir Magdi Yacoub5:41

And yes, I think fourteen, fifteen years.

Presenter5:45

And he obviously is important to you, but he was even so at the time because he, I think, was your third transplant operation and the first two had died.

Sir Magdi Yacoub5:55

That's correct. Derek is very important for more than one reason, because uh he he is an ideal patient in more than one way, because he sort of very meticulous and has uh made use of the operation, if you like, of the improvement in that he continued to do his own thing. He has carried on to do his job. He is a sort of a

Sir Magdi Yacoub6:21

A model face in which people look at and sort of admire.

Presenter6:26

It does seem to me, reading about you, that you go out of your way to to to learn about your patients, to find out what makes them tick, to to tell them to take a holiday, to tell you about their problems.

Sir Magdi Yacoub6:37

I I t I try. I don't always succeed because of limitations of time sometimes, but I try and I love it. It is important to have that rapport and that could help the patient physically by having a positive attitude, for example. That sometimes is a very important factor which can help the patient recover.

Presenter6:38

Yeah.

Presenter7:04

There there have been other stories, too, of of your giving your own blood to a patient during the course of an operation or or sitting next to a baby struggling for life in an incubator and again giving your blood. Those are true, those stories, are they?

Sir Magdi Yacoub7:18

Yeah, I d I don't think that that is uh anything unusual because I think giving blood is a duty almost.

Presenter7:25

But inevitably

Presenter7:27

I think you you you will agree you you've been criticised for it. Your colleagues feel that you're crossing the line, you're becoming emotionally involved with your patients.

Speaker 47:36

Hmm.

Sir Magdi Yacoub7:36

Uh

Sir Magdi Yacoub7:37

Maybe that that is true, but I I think while a doctor should be rational and uh detached in some way to be able to do absolutely the right thing at the right time, you cannot deny the fact that everybody is not a machine, and you cannot suddenly say, I don't have any emotions and I'm going to be a machine. So a mixture of the two, I don't think, does any harm.

Presenter8:07

Tell me about your second record.

Sir Magdi Yacoub8:09

The second record is by Bob Marley. No Woman, No Cry uh is one of my favorites. I I didn't understand Bob Marley initially and it was my son who was playing Bob Marley and I

Sir Magdi Yacoub8:24

It took me some time uh to understand this music and then when I did, I found that uh it's an extremely sensitive person with lovely music which tackles a lot of human issues.

Speaker 48:47

No, no man look like

Speaker 48:54

No warm mind, no cry.

Speaker 49:00

No, won't mine no

Presenter9:03

Bob Marley and No Woman, No Cry. Can you trace the origin of your ambitions to be a heart surgeon, Professor Yacoup? Was there a moment in your early life when you said, That's what I'm going to be?

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:15

Almost as far as I remember, I wanted to be a doctor. My father.

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:20

or the doctor and

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:22

I identified a lot with him.

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:24

And I said almost jokingly that I'm going to be a surgeon.

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:30

Probably a heart surgeon or a

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:32

brain surgeon and my father

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:35

opposed me and said

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:37

You'll never make that. No, A. It's not a very good life, you can see it.

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:42

how I'm struggling all the time and b

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:45

You

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:46

Almost certainly I'm not suited for it.

Presenter9:49

And then um his sister, your aunt, died when you were quite young, didn't she? And that that had a quite a profound effect on you.

Sir Magdi Yacoub9:57

Yes, his younger sister, who was at the time twenty two.

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:02

died during childbirth from

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:06

a narrowing of one of the heart valves, the mitron valve.

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:10

an eminently correctable condition.

Presenter10:13

Correctable even then.

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:15

Even then, there were a few people who would open that valve and cure the condition.

Presenter10:23

So was that the point, really, at which you thought, this is what I'm going to do?

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:26

I think that was another factor which sort of uh strengthened my resolve.

Presenter10:32

This was all um in in Egypt. You you lived outside Cairo, what some?

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:37

Uh yes. We lived in many parts of Egypt because uh my father had to go wherever there was a need for a surgeon, whether it's in a small town in the south or in Cairo or

Sir Magdi Yacoub10:51

Some of the villages and so on.

Presenter10:54

But eventually after you'd studied at Cairo University, you came to Britain to work, didn't you? Early sixties, I think it was. And obviously those were the years leading up to the point when Christian Barnard in nineteen sixty seven was to perform the world's first heart transplant.

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:01

Um

Presenter11:11

Was there an air of anticipation of that? Was it an exciting time? Did you feel in in the heart feel that something was going to happen?

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:18

Yes, indeed.

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:19

I think

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:21

Transplantation

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:22

Of the heart is an idea and like many ideas they just mature.

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:28

But it was exciting all the same to know that it has now entered the clinical arena, that you can do it in people.

Presenter11:38

And did that make you even more determined that you were going to do it too?

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:42

Yes, indeed.

Presenter11:43

Tell me about record number three.

Sir Magdi Yacoub11:45

Record number three is from Mozart's Requiem, The Confidantes. The whole of the Requiem, Mozart's Requiem is is is wonderful. It's an incredible piece of music. It's perfection again.

Sir Magdi Yacoub12:00

And the confitante is representing this terrific agitation of the soul or something which only Mozart can depict.

Sir Magdi Yacoub12:12

with such brilliance.

Presenter12:49

Part of the confutatis for Mozart's Requiem with the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera Chorus, conducted by Istvan Kertes.

Presenter12:56

You came back, Magda Yakoub, from Chicago in nineteen sixty nine to this country and to Harefield Hospital in Middlesex, where you've been ever since. But you came, presumably, then because it gave you licence to run your own show. You could set up a transplant programme and do it how you wanted to do it.

Sir Magdi Yacoub13:15

I came back for a variety of reasons. One is what you say is to run a show and again transplantation was not the only thing. There was o other things like, but

Sir Magdi Yacoub13:26

pediatrics and other types of heart surgery, but also because of identify very strongly with the concept of uh the NHS.

Sir Magdi Yacoub13:38

I think it's a marvelous system. Yes, it has a lot of problems and deficiencies which need to be corrected, that's for sure. It's not perfect, but what is. But it is the nearest you can get.

Sir Magdi Yacoub13:50

to perfection. Sometimes I think

Sir Magdi Yacoub13:53

The British public don't realize what an asset this is and how important it is to preserve it, strengthen it and get it to a very high level.

Presenter14:06

Do you think it's being preserved and strengthened at the moment?

Sir Magdi Yacoub14:10

I d I don't know. I think that uh there are attempts at strengthening it, but uh there are some negative forces as well, and hopefully the good will win.

Presenter14:22

It must, though, going back to the seventies now, it must have been.

Presenter14:27

Quite a blow for you, nevertheless, and I'm sorry to harp on about transplants, but obviously this was the the dramatic end of your business. Because suddenly in nineteen seventy three the Department of Health banned them, didn't it? It said they couldn't happen. And indeed they remained banned for six years.

Sir Magdi Yacoub14:41

Yes, indeed, that happened because there is an opportunity uh to force an issue, to say that this is something which can be done and should be done, but then many people do it without preparing, like what happened in many centers, the results were less than optimal and that created a a bad atmosphere.

Presenter15:03

Do you do you think you were partly to blame for that atmosphere and that ban? Because in nineteen seventy three you operated without much warning, didn't you, on on a patient uh and gave him a new heart?

Sir Magdi Yacoub15:14

Yes, you could say that, but uh it is these attempts which force the pace and have made people think harder and try harder to develop new drugs, new knowledge.

Presenter15:30

But at the time the result of I mean, of course, as you say, that's what experimentation does, but at the time what it forced was a ban on the work that you so desperately wanted to do. That must have been very frustrating for you, those six years.

Sir Magdi Yacoub15:40

Yes. On the other hand, I had so many other things to be worrying about at the time, so I waited for the opportunity to come back into that field and that happened.

Presenter15:51

Six years later, as we shall hear. But um tell me about your next record first, number four.

Sir Magdi Yacoub15:56

That also comes from Mozart's Requiem, and it is the lacrymosa which follows immediately after the previous piece of music and provides a contrast, because this is a very

Sir Magdi Yacoub16:13

Peaceful.

Sir Magdi Yacoub16:14

Thoughtful piece of music.

Presenter17:19

Part of the Lacrymosa from Mozart's Requiem, again with the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera Chorus conducted by Istvan Kertes. You hit the headlines on several occasions during that period in the 70s, during the band Magda Jacob. Once when you connected a child, a thirteen month old, I think, to a live baboon. Can you explain what you did and why you did it?

Sir Magdi Yacoub17:43

At that time

Sir Magdi Yacoub17:44

It was shown by some investigators that if you cool a primate, specifically the papoon,

Sir Magdi Yacoub17:56

and then exchange take all his blood out, and put human blood, and then re warm that animal that the animal would live happily the blood will not reject the other organs, and vice versa.

Sir Magdi Yacoub18:14

This will continue for a period of several weeks. During that period you can connect that animal to a human where the blood is compatible. If you do that,

Sir Magdi Yacoub18:29

You provide a multi-organ support. This has been done to provide support for failing livers. What I did was just an extension of that concept because I had this beautiful baby who had one chambered heart, had some sort of a correction, and was doing well, and then the heart failed, but also several other organs failed. His brain, however, did not. And that was a very strong stimulus for me to think that if I connect that baby

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:09

Two.

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:10

a bamboo treated in the fashion I've just mentioned.

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:14

that that can pro provide multi-organ support.

Presenter19:18

So so the baboon is effectively a a a living heart, lungs and kidney machine.

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:23

The heart, kidney, liver, everything, yeah.

Presenter19:26

sedated, lying alongside the child and fulfilling all the organic functions.

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:29

Yeah.

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:33

Correct. And the the the jaundice disappeared. The heart dis of the baby improved for a period of time. All the organs it started the kidneys of the child started to work.

Presenter19:45

So scientifically it it was completely sound. What about ethically? Did you have any ethical dilemma about that?

Sir Magdi Yacoub19:52

Yes, I felt at the time, and I feel now that there are certain animals who are breeding too fast, and the baboon comes under that heading because there are too many. There aren't there's no way we can use uh an animal who threatened like the higher primates. But baboons, I thought that they can be used on one condition, and that is that we should respect their needs.

Presenter20:27

But as I understand your position as far as the the child, the human being is concerned, and your position applies across the board, is very straightforward.

Presenter20:37

If there's a chance of saving a life, it's perfectly proper to do so as long as it doesn't put another life in danger.

Presenter20:44

Now, what about in the case which occurred, I think, in the mid eighties when you used the heart from a baby born with a malformed brain and you transplanted it into a baby with a heart defect? Uh there was a lot of controversy over that, wasn't there? I mean it it was said that that that you kept alive the donor baby in order to take its heart.

Speaker 420:57

Yeah.

Presenter21:07

And and it I think was a police investigation in the end, wasn't there?

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:10

Correct. I mean it it it started anyway. Yeah. Yeah, the problem is very emotive stuff. It is indeed, but it depends what you mean by alive.

Presenter21:11

To a

Presenter21:15

Very emotive stuff.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:21

If I lose my brain.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:23

Or I'm born without it.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:26

I am not alive. I don't think you can say that that baby was alive. It's the word alive.

Presenter21:32

Of course the baby connected to the baboon died in the end, didn't he?

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:36

Yes, indeed.

Presenter21:37

And the baboon died too, poisoned by the baby.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:39

The baboon, yeah, but it wasn't inevitable.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:44

that either the baboon or the baby will die. I mean, th if this is was is to be repeated.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:51

A hundred times I'm sure you'll get away with it in eighty, ninety percent.

Presenter21:56

And you'd do the same thing again tomorrow.

Sir Magdi Yacoub21:56

Do the same thing again tomorrow. Do the same again tomorrow. I didn't expect.

Sir Magdi Yacoub22:02

the the outcry which happened afterwards and I would still defend that action.

Presenter22:09

Next piece of music.

Sir Magdi Yacoub22:11

Um the next piece of music is the dance of the swans from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. Tchaikovsky is again a very sensitive musician and he created this music with three or four dancers dancing and that to me represents human elegance in a very big way.

Presenter23:33

The Dance of the Swans from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by James Levine.

Presenter23:39

You've tried very hard, Professor Jacob, during the course of all of this pioneering work to keep a low profile yourself on the personal level, which hasn't been easy because, as we've discussed, it's all been so controversial. Why are you so shy about having a public profile?

Sir Magdi Yacoub23:56

What I feel is the the issues which are being addressed at any one time.

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:02

Can be confused.

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:04

Well

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:05

The people who are involved.

Presenter24:08

You also prefer to get on with your work, I presume.

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:09

That's that's one

Presenter24:10

Not to be interviewed all the time. But you accepted a knighthood a few years ago. And obviously your your work has brought you material rewards, f fast Italian cars, I'm told, at which you fall asleep at the wheel, is that right?

Presenter24:24

And uh and houses abroad and so on. Do you have time to enjoy all of these things, or are you always working?

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:30

No, I I try and balance my life as much as possible, but sometimes it's difficult.

Presenter24:37

You still make appointments, I understand, to see patients at two o'clock in the morning,'cause that's the only time you've got free.

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:42

Sometimes, yeah. Not often, I hope.

Presenter24:44

And

Presenter24:46

But I mean you come here today having performed an operation in the early hours of the morning because yours is simply a an unpredictable profession, obviously.

Sir Magdi Yacoub24:54

Yes, indeed.

Presenter24:54

And how do you cope with that? I mean, do you manage to live a healthy life, nevertheless?

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:00

My wife is uh

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:03

very strict about that. She tries very hard to make me do all the right things and to swim and every morning and to walk and to do this and that.

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:12

I object sometimes, but I end up

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:14

I enjoyed it.

Presenter25:16

But d do you drink? Do you smoke?

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:19

Um I drink socially.

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:21

I don't smoke. I did, or sometimes even now, smoke a pipe every now and then, but hardly.

Presenter25:27

And I also understand that when you go on holiday, you don't fully relax because you're constantly ringing up to find out how your patients are doing.

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:34

Yeah, but but that's the way of life. Uh you tend to

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:39

accept and live with it.

Presenter25:41

You're said to be unflappable. Do you think you are?

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:44

I try to. I'm not sure how successful I am, but I try.

Presenter25:48

You have an inner calm.

Sir Magdi Yacoub25:51

Uh yes, I again try and uh make it a real thing. It's not always infallible.

Presenter25:59

But that's why you find silence bliss and why you like very precise and mathematical music, is it? You

Presenter26:07

You like a sense of order, or you try to bring a sense of order into yourself.

Sir Magdi Yacoub26:11

So maybe that's the case, yes.

Presenter26:15

Next piece of music.

Sir Magdi Yacoub26:17

The next piece of music is from Saint Matthew Passion, and it is uh the last chorus translated into English. It is uh With tears of grief we leave you dear and I've listened to it many times before, but on one occasion uh in a local church well I I heard my own daughter

Sir Magdi Yacoub26:40

singing in the choir.

Sir Magdi Yacoub26:42

I was so moved that that piece of music has just stuck in my mind and will forever.

Speaker 426:51

Oh, Spirit Man.

Presenter27:48

The final chorus from Bach's Saint Matthew Passchen Wesetzen und Smittreinen Lieder with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Sir George Schulte.

Presenter27:58

How far off, Professor Jacob, do you think the invention of the artificial heart is of something small enough and powerful enough?

Presenter28:08

as the heart is to pump blood round the body for twenty four hours a day.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:08

That's the

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:12

There are devices now.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:14

which can support life for up.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:16

To one or two years.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:19

And that period could be lengthened, but it hasn't got the finesse.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:25

of a biological system.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:27

Which is just incredible, it's so superior.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:32

to anything.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:33

Man can make.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:35

But

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:36

The interesting thing is that now

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:39

With the aid of molecular biology, you can control biological processes or you can have a hybrid whereby you have

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:49

Genes.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:50

doing things for you.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:52

in an artificial fashion, if you like.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:55

And

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:56

Perhaps also what is coming.

Sir Magdi Yacoub28:59

is manipulating organs from other species to make them compatible with man.

Presenter29:06

So if man can't invent the heart a heart himself, he can actually find a way round it, do you think?

Sir Magdi Yacoub29:10

Correct. Correct.

Presenter29:12

Record number seven.

Sir Magdi Yacoub29:14

I would like to take with me Schubert's serenade, a lot of Schubert's music.

Sir Magdi Yacoub29:21

Um is very, very emotional and beautiful and flowing.

Sir Magdi Yacoub29:27

And I find his serenade.

Sir Magdi Yacoub29:31

As representative of that

Sir Magdi Yacoub29:34

Extremely beautiful attribute.

Speaker 429:37

Thies a free and minor leader.

Speaker 429:42

Horace North.

Speaker 430:07

Mr Trank have been the rouchen In a small sleek in a small

Speaker 430:23

The sparrow spine twitched all shall fear the war.

Presenter30:37

Fritz Bunderlich singing Schubert's Serenade. What about Magdy Jacob on a Desert Island? Do you think you could organize yourself practically and domestically for this kind of Robinson Crusoe existence?

Sir Magdi Yacoub30:48

I am not a very organized person.

Sir Magdi Yacoub30:51

Uh when it comes to everyday life, um I'm blessed with people who try and organize me.

Presenter30:58

But otherwise you create chaos, do you?

Sir Magdi Yacoub30:58

Because otherwise

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:00

Yeah, that's what worries me, yes.

Presenter31:03

But is is there again contemplating a desert island existence is there part of you that that longs for that kind of peace? Or are you hooked in many ways on the pressure of your work?

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:13

No, I think uh I am hooked on my work to some extent, but uh I still long for the idea of being

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:23

on my own, interacting with nature, I think it doesn't frighten me somehow.

Presenter31:29

And what about in real life? You're sixty later this year. Do you contemplate retirement?

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:34

I don't think about it. I still am totally immersed in my work and uh

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:39

But there are things in life I I would want to do.

Presenter31:43

What do you want to do?

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:44

Um I want to uh

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:48

a farm, for example, or grow flowers or that would uh be something which could

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:55

Absorbed me very much.

Presenter31:57

You grow orchids, don't you?

Sir Magdi Yacoub31:58

I I do, yeah.

Presenter31:59

Award-winning orchid.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:01

Well, I don't know. I I haven't entered competitions, but some of the flowers could be, but I haven't.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:09

in that competitive life in that field.

Presenter32:12

By the way, did your did your father live to see you fulfil your ambition?

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:16

No, my father died just before.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:20

I came to this country.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:23

He uh had a heart attack and died.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:27

That was quite sad.

Presenter32:30

Mas record.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:32

The last record is Mozart's Fantasia for piano.

Sir Magdi Yacoub32:37

Mozart has many facets as we have heard, but at times he can be very thoughtful and I think that in the Fantasia he just shows that very nicely.

Presenter33:54

Part of Mozart's Fantasia for piano in D minor played by Emile Guillels. If you could only take one of those records, Professor.

Sir Magdi Yacoub34:03

I think it's going to be very difficult to choose, but I think I'll ti take them outside.

Presenter34:09

What about your book?

Sir Magdi Yacoub34:10

I think I'll take a book by the late Sir Peter Medawa, Pluto's Republic.

Sir Magdi Yacoub34:17

And in that book he starts by saying that.

Sir Magdi Yacoub34:21

One of his friends came to him and said, I understand you're a philosopher. Don't you think that Pluto's Republic

Sir Magdi Yacoub34:30

is a wonderful thing. What he meant, of course, was Plato's Republic, and he got it all wrong, mistaking the uh philosopher with Pluto, who is from the Greek Greek mythology, the god of the underworld and death.

Sir Magdi Yacoub34:49

Peter Medow thought that was really apt, because there must be a Pluto's republic for the intellectual underworld, and that this has many citizens. And then he starts telling you

Sir Magdi Yacoub35:04

In a very humorous fashion, and critical, of course, about the citizens of Pluto's Republic.

Presenter35:12

Yeah.

Presenter35:13

What about your luxury?

Sir Magdi Yacoub35:15

I think I'll take a hammock.

Sir Magdi Yacoub35:17

To listen to my music or read the books.

Sir Magdi Yacoub35:20

Uh that would be my luxury.

Presenter35:22

Professor Sir Magdi Yakub, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Sir Magdi Yacoub35:27

Thank you.

Speaker 235:35

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.