James Hardy (surgeon)

James D. Hardy (May 14, 1918 – February 19, 2003) was an American surgeon, famous for the first human lung transplant (1963) and the first animal-to-human heart transplant (1964).^[1]

Early life

Hardy grew up in Newala, Alabama, a small community in Shelby County. His father owned a lime plant in Newala. He studied at a high school in Montevallo before entering the University of Alabama for pre-medical curriculum. He received his MD in 1942 from University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He held the office of the president of Alpha Omega Alpha during his senior year and his first scientific publication was on wound healings.

Career

Hardy served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in early 1944 during the Second World War. He first worked at Stark General Hospital, Charleston in South Carolina. Hardy began writing his first book, Surgery and the Endocrine System, in 1950 which was published two years later. 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. He became the chair of surgery at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Jackson in 1955. He was also the first Professor of Surgery at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine.

Hardy wrote 24 books, 139 book chapters, 466 papers, and produced over 200 films. Vishnevsky Institute, Moscow honored him in 1971 for his pioneering work in organ transplantation and awarded him two medals for lung transplant and heart, respectively. He has served as President of the Society of University Surgeons, the Society of Surgical Chairmen, the Southern Surgical Association, the American College of Surgeons, the American Surgical Association and the International Society of Surgery.

Hardy also led the team responsible for performing a double-lung transplant that left the heart in place, in 1987.

First lung transplant (1963)

Approximately two months before transplant surgery, 58-year-old John Russell was admitted to the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi, with recurrent pneumonia unresponsive to antibiotics.^[2] He also had squamous cell carcinoma of his left lung and emphysema, as well as kidney disease. To complicate matters, Russell was a prisoner at the Mississippi State Penitentiary serving a life sentence for murder. James Hardy wrote in the article regarding this case, "Although the patient was serving a life sentence for a capital offense, there was no discussion with him regarding the possibility of a change in his prison sentence. 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."^[3]

Prior to the surgery, Russell would awake at night coughing up bloody sputum until he was blue in the face. Every movement left him extremely short of breath, and he was scared of suffocating. Tests showed he only had one-third of normal lung capacity. When Hardy approached him about the potential transplant, Russell talked with his wife and three children. His main concern was whether the transplant would help improve his shortness of breath. Hardy told him that he thought it would. However, when Hardy and his team begun the transplant they saw that Russell's cancer had spread beyond the left lung. The transplant would not save his life from the cancer. However, it might give him better breathing.^[4]

On June 11, 1963, Hardy led the team which performed this first human lung transplant on John Russell. He lived for another 18 days and then died of kidney failure.^[5][6]

Thoracic resident Martin Dalton, MD, sought and received consent from the family of a recently deceased heart attack patient. He also used an endotracheal tube to keep the lungs ventilated and injected heparin into the heart to prevent clotting. When the time came, he removed the left lung and carried it to the adjourning operating room. Watts Webb assisted Hardy with the transplant.^[4]

First heart transplant (1964)

On January 23, 1964, he performed the first heart transplant, in which the heart of a chimpanzee, a genetically closer animal, was transplanted into the chest of Boyd Rush (age 68), who was dying, as a last effort trying to save him, as no human heart was available. Rush died after 90 minutes. Hardy dealt with severe criticism for performing the transplant, but the operation manifested the possibility of human heart transplantation. Three years later, the first successful human-to-human heart transplantation was performed in 1967 by Christiaan Neethling Barnard.

Personal life

Hardy married Louise Scott Sams of Decatur, Georgia in 1949; they met when he was working in Stark General Hospital in Charleston. She died from Alzheimer's disease in 2000. 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.

Retirement

Hardy retired from the Department of Surgery, University of Mississippi School of Medicine, Jackson, in 1987. He died at the age of 84 on February 19, 2003.

Books

Hardy wrote an autobiography, The World of Surgery 1945–1985: Memoirs of One Participant, which was published in 1986. Apart from his autobiography, Hardy also wrote several other books including:

• Hardy's Textbook of Surgery
• Surgery and the Endocrine System
• The Academic Surgeon

Notes

References

• James D. Hardy (1986), The World of Surgery 1945–1985: Memoirs of One Participant (Autobiography)
• http://surgery.umc.edu/professionals/history/hardy/memoriam_hardy.html
• http://www.umc.edu/about_us/hardy.html
• http://orig.clarionledger.com/news/0302/21/m01.html