MEDICINE

SURGERY The Ultimate Operation For weeks, and months, and even years, surgical teams at more than 20 medical centers around the world have been standing ready to make the first transplant of a heart from one human being to another. What they have been waiting for is the simultaneous arrival of two patients with compatible blood types--one doomed to die of some disease that has not involved his heart, and a second doomed to die of incurable, irreversible heart disease.

Last week, in two hospitals separated by almost 8,000 miles of Atlantic Ocean, the historic juxtaposition happened and the heart transplants were performed.

The team at Brooklyn's Maimonides Medical Center, headed by Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, admitted "unequivocal failure." Their patient, a 19-day-old boy, died 6 1/2 hours after he received a new heart. But the team of Dr. Christiaan Neethling Barnard, 44, which acted first at Cape Town, South Africa, had a more enduring success. Their patient, a 55-year-old man, was feeding himself and making small talk a week after his epochal surgery. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.