Transplant Survival

An obscure Negro schoolteacher from Indianapolis has made surgical history. Louis B. Russell Jr. has surpassed the record for heart-transplant survival set by Cape Town Dentist Philip Blaiberg, who lived for 594 days after his operation. Although Blaiberg was depicted as being hale and hearty as a Rotarian greeter, a recent book by his widow reveals that he was miserably uncomfortable, if not downright ill during most of his life with his new heart. Russell, who at week's end had survived 603 days, appears to be in far better shape than Blaiberg was.

One reason may be Russell's age: Blaiberg was 58 when he received his new heart; Russell will be only 45 this week. Also, Blaiberg's heart disease was of long standing and had damaged other major organ systems before the transplant, but Russell's heart attacks, in 1962 and 1965, had caused no such widespread difficulties. Finally, in 1968, Indianapolis Cardiologist Robert Chevalier diagnosed heart disease of such severity that only a new heart could give Russell a chance for survival. He referred Russell to Surgeon Richard Lower at the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. Lower had worked at Stanford University with Dr. Norman Shumway devising, in animals, the transplant technique that Surgeon Christiaan Barnard later adopted.

In Richmond, Russell waited until Lower could give him a suitable heart; it turned out to be that of a 17-year-old-boy who had died of a gunshot wound in the head. That was Aug. 24, 1968. Since then, Russell has had four crises caused by his body's rejection of the implanted heart. Each time, Dr. Chevalier increased Russell's daily dosage of immunosuppressive drugs, but reduced it again within a few weeks, so that Russell's defenses against infection were not seriously impaired for long.

Beyond mere survival, Russell has set another noteworthy record for heart-transplant recipients. None of the others has worked so strenuously at his old job--and taken on other tasks besides. Russell, a skilled carpenter who teaches industrial arts at a boys' junior high, repaired the roof of his two-story house ten months after his operation. He keeps busy on remodeling jobs or making furniture--except when he is touring the countryside to give speeches about his heart transplant. Last month Russell, who has two children living at home, found room in his new heart for still another burden. He and his wife became foster parents of a 13-year-old boy who had been in trouble with the authorities.

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