Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
South African heart surgeon who performed the world's first human heart transplant.
Eight records
Spanish EyesFavourite
Bert Kaempfert and His Orchestra
Spanish Eyes uh was the song that uh was played when I met my present wife Barbara. And every time when we were at a at a restaurant or a or a discotheque and they should play this record, then we remember Isquia.
Barbara and myself were at a uh restaurant one night and the leader of this band came to me and said, They haven't uh made a hit record for a long time in South Africa. He says, and I wanted you to tell me whether you like this particular song. So they played and sang the song A Rose Has to Die. And I said to him, I think it's going to be a tremendous hit.
I think this is one of the greatest recordings ever made.
It's a very sad story and I sometimes enjoy sadness and uh that's why I I like this record very much.
I thought this was a great movie and I think the theme uh is very beautiful.
I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store)
I saw him on television in the United States when I was studying there. when I was very lonely too. And uh he impressed me very much as a humble, very nice man and uh I always enjoyed his music and I think uh this one, a particular record is really a very, very nice song.
Louis Armstrong has always been one of my heroes. I I think he was a great man and uh anything that he sang or played, I enjoyed and I especially like this one.
I have still a young wife, and I wonder sometimes will she still love me when I'm 64? I'm sure she would.
The keepsakes
The book
Herman Charles Bosman
It'll have to be something amusing. ... I would like to have a book called The Best of Bosman, which is very amusing stories about life in South Africa.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Have you ever experienced loneliness?
Oh, yes, often. Uh even loneliness with people around me I've experienced. For example, after my first transplant patient died. I remembered very clearly it was early in the morning as the sun was coming up in the eastern sky. He died and I had people around me, but I've never been so lonely in my life.
Presenter asks
What would you be happiest to have got away from?
The telephone. The telephone is my biggest enemy because every time it rings, especially at night, it usually means uh there are problems.
Presenter asks
Why did you decide on medicine?
I really became influenced by my brother, my eldest brother, who was at university and was studying engineering. He had friends who were in medical school, and uh him talking about the medical students uh made me interested uh in medicine.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Speaker 1
Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
On our desert island this week, we have the South African heart surgeon, Dr. Christiane Barnard. Dr. Barnard, have you ever experienced loneliness?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Oh, yes, often.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh even loneliness with people around me I've experienced.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
For example, after my first transplant patient died.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I remembered very clearly it was early in the morning as the sun was coming up in the eastern sky. He died and
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I had people around me, but I've never been so lonely in my life.
Presenter
What would you be happiest to have got away from?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The telephone. The telephone is my biggest enemy because every time it rings, especially at night, it usually means uh there are problems.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Is music important in your life?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yes, it has a a tremendous influence on the mood I can get in. Do you play an instrument?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yes, I I used to um be uh quite a good piano player.
Presenter
Did you?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I took uh music lessons when I was a kid at school.
Presenter
Uh
Dr Christiaan Barnard
with uh a blind teacher who meant quite a lot to me in my life. And uh I did classical music then and eventually uh I switched to to playing jazz and I can still play a little bit.
Presenter
But did you have any kind of plan in choosing these eight records that may have to last the rest of your life?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Well, all these records um that I've chosen mean something to me.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
They indicate certain events in my life and certain experiences I've had. What's the first one?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Well, Spanish Eyes uh was the song that uh was played when I met my present wife Barbara. And every time when we were at a at a restaurant or a or a discotheque and they should play this record, then we remember Isquia.
Presenter
Bert Campford's orchestra, Spanish Eyes, also called Moon Over Naples, to remind you of Ischia and Barbara. What's your second record?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
A rose has to die.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Barbara and myself were at a uh restaurant one night and the leader of this band
Dr Christiaan Barnard
came to me and said, They haven't uh made a hit record for a long time in South Africa. He says, and I wanted you to tell me whether you like this particular song.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
So they played and sang the song A Rose Has to Die. And I said to him, I think it's going to be a tremendous hit. And uh they made this this uh recording and it became one of the hits in South Africa.
Presenter
We haven't been able to find that South African record in our library, so who shall play it on this occasion?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
A rider
Speaker 4
The autumn leaves came down And took away the love we found
Speaker 4
Fetch me in a lovely world with great
Speaker 4
Auntie Rose has to die every time you tell a lie.
Speaker 4
Promise what is given must be true.
Speaker 4
Watch these roads!
Presenter
Riders playing A Rose Has to Die.
Presenter
Doctor Barnard, in which part of the
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Union will borne.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
It's now, of course, to the public. I was born in a little town called Beaufort West.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
uh in the Karoo, which is a very arid area of our country, but um very good for sheep farming. So I grew up with with sheep and with wool. Your father was a a Dutch Reformed Church minister? A missionary in that part of of the country. He worked amongst the coloured population of that area.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Why did you decide on medicine?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I really became influenced by my brother, my eldest brother, who was at university and was studying engineering.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
He had friends who were in medical school, and uh him talking about the medical students uh made me interested uh in medicine.
Presenter
I read that when you saw your first surgical operation you fainted. Is that a fairly common reaction among
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Mm. Young students.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
It often happens to young students when they have the the the drama of the operating room, especially in those days the smell of the anaesthetics, which of course we don't have anymore, the smell of ether.
Presenter
You graduated as a Bachelor of Medicine, then you did six months of gynecology, and then general practice, dealing not only with coughs and sneezes, but things like the results of an attack by a leper. Yes, that's right. Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
It was a woman.
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The leopard was coming down across the farm yard and she got in the way of the leopard and
Dr Christiaan Barnard
got very badly mauled and I treated her she needed many stitches because she was torn up quite a lot by the leopard.
Presenter
You had a chance for some research work in a hospital for infectious diseases.
Presenter
That was the first research we did, wasn't it? You were doing a normal day's work in the hospital and then doing your research at night.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Sometimes we had not such a lot of work during the day and I could get busy with the research. And also a lot of the research could be done by tests that I did during the day on these patients. But I often had to do all my own postmortems.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
and these I had to do at night with no assistant.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Because there was no assistant to help me. I had to open the body and take the brain out, because I was doing research on tuberculosis meningitis.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And so I had to study the brain in each case.
Presenter
A macabre work to do alone in the middle of the night.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Well, you know Michael Angelo did his anatomy in the middle of the night on On corpses.
Presenter
Yes, indeed. Let's have your third record.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The third record is uh by Ray Charles, I Can't Stop Loving You. I think this is one of the greatest recordings ever made.
Speaker 4
And stop blocking you too.
Speaker 4
I've made up my mind.
Speaker 4
To live in memory.
Speaker 4
Of the gold sometimes
Speaker 4
I can't stop waiting you.
Presenter
Ray Charles
Presenter
Now, you had developed this interest in heart surgery. Exciting things were happening in that field in the United States.
Presenter
How did you get your your chance to go out there and work in that research unit?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
This was also purely by accident. I was coming back one afternoon from the cafeteria at the medical school in Cape Town.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And I bumped into the professor of medicine and he said to me, Chris, how would you like to go to the United States? I never had an idea to go to the United States. I said, well, give me some time to think about it.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Through this professor of medicine, Professor Brock, I ended up in the United States. And I actually went there to do general surgery.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I didn't know that open heart surgery was
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Was being developed there. And it just so happened that I went to the center where modern open heart surgery was started.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
So I I got in at ground level.
Presenter
You also decided to take your PhD, and you decided to do it in two years instead of six.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
That's correct.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
But they were very kind to me in that they did accept some of my previous experience in surgery to give me the necessary qualifications to write this examination.
Presenter
And you also had to do odd jobs in order to live.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yes, that's right. I had to wash cars and mow lawns and things like that to uh to earn enough money uh to keep my family there.
Presenter
And I believe that the speed with which you got your PhD was a university record. When you returned to to South Africa, the Americans provided the means for you to start a a heart surgery unit.
Presenter
How far had Open Heart's head for your progress by the?
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
It had progressed mainly to the extent that we were able to correct certain congenital malformations of the heart. At those those days we weren't able yet to replace heart valves by means of artificial valves, and the more complex congenital heart diseases were not within our reach. So it was very much in the early phases of open heart surgery that I went back to Cape Town.
Presenter
And in 1967 you were the first man to attempt a heart transplant. How many have you done since then?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Now we have to qualify the type that we're referring to. You know there's the heart transplant where the patient's heart is removed, called the orthotopic heart transplant. I've done nine of those. And then there is the new technique that we use where we don't remove the patient's own heart.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
We put a second heart in his body just to assist his own heart, the heterotopic transplant. I've done five of those.
Presenter
And is that an improvement on the original transplant?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Well, it's still too early really to be dogmatic about it. I'm very impressed with the early results of this new technique. It appears that patients do much better initially than they used to do with the transplant where the patient's own heart is removed. Of the five patients that I've operated on with heterotopic transplantation, four are alive. And three of them are already out of hospital. The one now is fourteen months after transplantation. And I'm really very impressed with it.
Speaker 1
I'm really
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh return to normal life with this operation. Thank one
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Operations will be Come commonplace.
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I think so. I think that uh the only stumbling block uh still is rejection, which is the body's ability to recognize the transplant heart as foreign and it therefore then sets up a reaction to the foreignness and that eventually will kill the transplant heart unless you do something about it.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Now today we are not able yet to prevent rejection.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
But I think the time will come when we will prevent rejection completely.
Presenter
Let's have your fourth record. Let's get back to music.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The fourth record is by Austin Roberts and it's called Rocky. It's a very sad story and I sometimes enjoy sadness and uh that's why I I like this record very much.
Speaker 4
Had lots of problems then, but we had lots of fun.
Speaker 4
Like the crazy party when our baby girl turned one.
Speaker 4
I was proud and satisfied, Life had so much to give.
Speaker 4
Till the day they told me that she didn't have long to live She said Rocky, I never had to die before
Presenter
Rocky by Austin Roberts A very sad story.
Presenter
The heart operations you carried out were new and courageous, but they brought a pretty big storm of criticism, didn't they?
Presenter
Holly
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yes. Uh
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I still don't understand why, but we were very severely criticized. There's not an aspect of the operation that.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
It did not come under criticism.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Still today I cannot accept any of this critic criticism as real.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I mean, you can try and criticize this operation if you want to, and I'll give you an answer to every point that you raise.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
There's no doubt about it, that there are certain people who's dying from a certain form of heart disease, that we cannot help in any other way.
Presenter
In collaboration, you you wrote your autobiography, One Life, six or seven years ago. You've now written, again in collaboration, a novel.
Presenter
The Unwanted. It's about a heart surgeon. Obviously, a great deal of your own experience has gone into it.
Presenter
To what extent is it autobiographical?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
To a large extent, you know the novel actually has two characters, a a color doctor in South Africa and a white doctor in South Africa.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And both characters are really um autobiographical in that the white doctor becomes a heart surgeon. So I describe a lot of my own experiences, my response to stress, to failure, to success. And then as far as the black doctor is concerned,
Dr Christiaan Barnard
There is no such character. We sought him out.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
and imagined him. And there I put my place in the man in the in the in the shoes of a as a colored man in South Africa becomes a doctor and has to suffer the humiliation of the petty apartheid that we unfortunately still have in that country.
Presenter
We've got to record number five. What's that?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Lara's theme under the movie Doctor Shivago.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
There's a little story about Doctor Sivago.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The woman who went to the box office to buy uh a ticket to go to Doctor Sivargo, you see, it was charged quite a a bit of money. So she said, why did they charge so much money? Doctor Sivargo is not a specialist.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And I I thought this was a great movie and I think the theme uh is very beautiful.
Presenter
Lara's theme from the soundtrack of Doctor Shivago. Now surgery is a way of dealing with heart disease, which is a killer.
Presenter
Can you suggest how one can avoid heart disease?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
That is a difficult question.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh the only way in which one can avoid a disease is when you know the cause of the disease. We know the cause of smallpox and therefore we can make a vaccine to stop people from getting smallpox. Unfortunately, the cause of
Dr Christiaan Barnard
the heart disease that we're now discussing, which is coronary artery disease.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
is unknown.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
There are many factors which they believe contribute towards the formation of this disease, but no single factor can be pinpointed that caused the disease.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Solution
Dr Christiaan Barnard
This is uh part of the game, it's not the full story. It's uh been said that people who have a diet uh high in animal fats are more prone to get the disease than others.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh but you will find that there are many people who have eat high animal fat contents all their lives and they never get the disease.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The sixth record is uh uh by Natkin Cole and it's called I Found a Million Dollar Baby.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I never met Natkin Cole, and as you know, he tragically died from cancer of the lung.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh but I saw him on television in the United States when I was studying there.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
when I was very lonely too. And uh he impressed me very much as a humble, very nice man and uh I always enjoyed his music and I think uh this one, a particular record is really a very, very nice song.
Speaker 4
It was a lucky April shower
Speaker 4
It was the most convenient doom.
Speaker 4
I found a million dollar baby
Speaker 4
In a five and ten cent store
Speaker 4
The rain continued for an hour.
Speaker 4
I hung around for three or four.
Presenter
Napkin Co
Presenter
How would you feel on a desert island?
Presenter
Would the situation start up any irrational fears?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I don't think so. You know, I'm a a product of the of the South African countryside.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And as a result of that, I think I could probably look after myself very well if there's water, fruit and wild animals. I think I could be able to survive quite well on an island alone.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Would you try to escape?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Ha ha ha.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
That's a difficult question.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yes, I think I would try and get uh back to civilization. I think it will eventually get boring on this island, uh doing nothing and also I'll be away from my family. You know, I have two young, beautiful young boys and I have a beautiful young wife. And this certainly these these family reasons was just enough to make me try to escape from the island. Right, record number seven.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The seventh record is by Louis Armstrong.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And it's called A Kiss to Build a Dream On.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Louis Armstrong has always been one of my heroes. I I think he was a great man and uh anything that he sang or played, I enjoyed and I especially like this one.
Speaker 4
Yes, give me a kiss to fill a dream on.
Speaker 4
Fireman imagination will drive broken kiss.
Speaker 4
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this.
Speaker 4
Kiss the bill, the dream on.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Presenter
A Kiss to Build a Dream On by Louis Armstrong. What's your last record?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
The last one is uh uh a song by the Beatles.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Sergeant Pepper, and it's When I'm Sixty Four. Why'd you choose it?
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I think you must play it to realize that uh
Dr Christiaan Barnard
This is a problem for me. I have still a young wife, and I wonder sometimes will she still love me when I'm 64? I'm sure she would.
Speaker 4
When I get old I'll lose my head Many years from now
Speaker 4
Will you still be sending me Valentine, Birthday greetings, bottle of wine, If I'd been out till quarter to three?
Speaker 4
Would you lock the door?
Speaker 4
Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I'm sixty-four?
Presenter
The Beatles. If you could take just one disc out of that H you've played us, which one would it be?
Presenter
I think it'll probably Spanish eyes. And one luxury
Dr Christiaan Barnard
To take with you?
Presenter
Uh
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh
Dr Christiaan Barnard
It'll probably be a sculpture by Michelangelo, for example, David.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
I think it's a it's a a fantastic piece of work.
Presenter
and one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, or big encyclopedias.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yeah.
Presenter
Yeah.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Well, it'll have to be something amusing.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Mm.
Dr Christiaan Barnard
And I don't know, you probably don't know this book. There was an author in South Africa called Hermann Bossmann.
Presenter
Uh
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yeah.
Presenter
Command Boss
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Uh
Presenter
Uh
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Yeah, and he wrote uh several books. Uh I would like to have uh a book called The Best of Bosman, which is very amusing stories about life in South Africa.
Presenter
That will be arranged. And thank you, doctor Christian Bernard, for letting us hear your Desert Island
Dr Christiaan Barnard
Thank you very much. I enjoyed it very much.
Presenter
Goodbye, everyone.
Speaker 1
You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.
Presenter asks
How did you get your chance to go out [to the United States] and work in that research unit?
This was also purely by accident. I was coming back one afternoon from the cafeteria at the medical school in Cape Town. And I bumped into the professor of medicine and he said to me, Chris, how would you like to go to the United States? I never had an idea to go to the United States. I said, well, give me some time to think about it. Through this professor of medicine, Professor Brock, I ended up in the United States.
Presenter asks
To what extent is [your novel, The Unwanted] autobiographical?
To a large extent, you know the novel actually has two characters, a a color doctor in South Africa and a white doctor in South Africa. And both characters are really um autobiographical in that the white doctor becomes a heart surgeon. So I describe a lot of my own experiences, my response to stress, to failure, to success. And then as far as the black doctor is concerned, there is no such character. We sought him out. and imagined him. And there I put my place in the man in the in the in the shoes of a as a colored man in South Africa becomes a doctor and has to suffer the humiliation of the petty apartheid that we unfortunately still have in that country.
Presenter asks
Would the situation [on a desert island] start up any irrational fears?
I don't think so. You know, I'm a a product of the of the South African countryside. And as a result of that, I think I could probably look after myself very well if there's water, fruit and wild animals. I think I could be able to survive quite well on an island alone.
“I had people around me, but I've never been so lonely in my life.”
“The telephone is my biggest enemy because every time it rings, especially at night, it usually means uh there are problems.”
“I think that uh the only stumbling block uh still is rejection, which is the body's ability to recognize the transplant heart as foreign and it therefore then sets up a reaction to the foreignness and that eventually will kill the transplant heart unless you do something about it.”