The mention of cardiac transplantation continues to elicit emotional comment from otherwise calm and studious clinicians and philosophers. For example, an editor of a leading medical journal has written a letter to Life magazine (Oct 8, 1971, p 26A) reiterating his belief that clinical cardiac transplantation should not be done until rejection is "solved," basing his opinion on the publication in that magazine of an abstract from a popular book by a nonscience lay writer, whose experience was limited to a single Texas city.
A review of the scientific data published in medical journals reveals, however, that the real situation with respect to heart transplantation is that it is neither a nostrum that has been exposed, nor a surgical panacea for heart disease. Indeed, we interpret the data as indicating that cardiac transplantation, despite several still poorly understood phenomena, is now a therapeutic modality for use in selected patients with