It was a scene of incredible tension. Scrub nurses, wearing flapper dresses of the 1920s, rushed in from a fancy dress party and slipped into their starched white uniforms. Surgeon Christian Barnard sat with only his underpants on and watched the scurrying of technicians and the wheeling of equipment. He burst into laughter, for no reason but release. It was time to begin the world's first operation transplanting the heart of one human being into the body of another. Dr. Barnard and the other surgeons on his team will soon put down the details of their medical experiment and publish it in a special edition of the South Africa Medical Journal. But, while waiting for the full technical details, the general and dramatic story of the operation can still be pieced together from the patient replies of the surgeons to press questions during this past hectic week after the operation...

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