Happy Birthday Christiaan Barnard
Learn more about Christiaan Barnard on his birthday.
Birth name: Christiaan Neethling Barnard.
Born: November 8, 1922.
Occupation: A doctor from Beaufort West, Barnard performed the world’s first human-to-human heart transplant operation in the early morning hours of December 3, 1967.
Before Fame: In 1945, he graduated from the University of Cape Town Medical School.
Trivia: Following the first successful kidney transplant in 1953, in the United States, Barnard performed the second kidney transplant in South Africa in October 1967, the first being done in Johannesburg the previous year.
Family Life: Barnard’s first marriage was to Aletta Gertruida Louw, a nurse, whom he married in 1948 while practising medicine in Ceres. The couple had two children — Deirdre (born 1950) and Andre (1951–1984). In 1970, he married heiress Barbara Zoellner when she was 19, the same age as his son, and they had two children — Frederick (born 1972) and Christiaan Jr. (born 1974). Barnard married for a third time in 1988 to Karin Setzkorn, a young model. They also had two children, Armin (born 1989) and Lara (born 1997).
Source: www.famousbirthdays.com and other.
