Surgery: Cape Town's Second

Like most South Africans, regardless of color and social status, Clive Haupt was stirred by Louis Washkansky's heart transplant. When Washkansky died, Garment Worker Haupt, 24, said to a neighbor: "I hope the next transplant succeeds." If the statement was obvious and unremarkable then, it soon gained poignancy. For the next transplant involved Haupt's own heart.

While Surgeon Christiaan N. Barnard was visiting the U.S. during Christmas week, he got reports from Cape Town that the patient next in line for a transplant, Philip Blaiberg, 58, was getting weaker. Several coronary occlusions had compelled Blaiberg to give up his practice...