A Tribute to the Pioneers of Transplantation
Remarks By Dr. Murray at the
U.S. Transplant Games
July 29, 2004
It is an honor to be here this
evening and to see so many 
colleagues, some of whom I have known for
decades, other I have met only recently. To have hundreds of years
of transplantation experience gathered in one place is inspiring
and gratifying.
In recent weeks I have been asked many times to retrace the steps
of the Herrick transplant in December 1954 
and to expound upon the
subsequent advances and challenges in our field. Each time I recount
these milestones I think not of what any one of us has done individually,
but instead what we have achieved together. Our experiences have
spanned the globe and decades, and each has made a significant contribution
in the lives of current and future patients and families.
I now wish to recall other pioneers. I do this with hesitancy because
it is impossible to include everyone.
Let’s start with David Hume. David and I began our surgical internships at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham & Women’s) on the same day, January 1, 1944. Dave died in a plane crash in 1973. At the end of our internship, David was selected to continue at the Brigham. I was drafted into military service.
My first permanent duty was at Valley Forge Army Hospital in Pennsylvania. This chance assignment turned out to be crucial in my professional life. My Valley Forge experience working with skin grafts on World War II burn casualties stimulated my interest in transplantation. On observing skin allografts slowing melt away while skin autographs placed at the same time grew and expanded, I wondered, “How could the body be so smart as to distinguish between skin grafts from self and non-self?”
During my three years of active duty at Valley Forge, Dave remained
at the Brigham and became the first surgeon to participate in the
Brigham kidney transplant program. Dr. George Thorn, Chief of Medicine,
had started the program which Dr. Francis Moore enthusiastically
supported when he became Chief of Surgery. The transplant team ultimately
included pathology, radiology, psychiatry, nursing and social services.
David Hume performed the well-publicized series of cadaveric thigh transplants. When I returned to the Brigham after military service to complete my surgical residency, I joined him on the transplant team. Dave, then working on the pituitary-adrenal axis, was more than willing to transfer the transplant lab responsibility to me, but he chose to remain in charge of the transplant patients.
When David was recalled to the Navy during the Korean War to complete
his military commitment, Dr.
Moore asked me to take over both the
lab and the clinical programs. David’s spirit was with us during
the Herrick operation on December 23, 1954.
In 1982, 28 years after our identical twin transplant, Peter Medawar, then studying the immunology of cancer, reflected on that Brigham operation with typical Medawarian prose:
