Demichov

On the 3rd December 1967, the first-ever human heart transplant was successfully performed. Among the research that enabled this result, there is that of the Soviet surgeon Vladimir Demichov, who dedicated his entire life to the cause. The road of scientific progress is often
a long one, filled with failures that, although necessary to arrive at the final destination, are difficult to accept. Demichov’s was exactly that: born in a Russian farming family at the beginning of the 20th century, he used to observe his mother disassemble, repair, and re-assemble watches, and he began to wonder if it would be possible to disassemble and reassemble a living being too. Salvatore La Porta reconstructs the work of Demichov, known for his experiments on dogs, the most famous of all being the one with the dog with two heads, which drew ethical judgement from the government and his colleagues. The life of a misunderstood scientist considered a new Frankenstein by many, who with his work contributed to the birth of modern transplantology.