Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery

Episode 3: Spare Parts

September 3, 2008 • 60 min

Transplant surgery development, from a Nazi sympathiser to new life-saving operations. These days, transplant surgery saves thousands of lives every year and almost everything, from heart to eyes, can be replaced. But in the beginning, transplants killed rather than cured, because surgeons didn't understand that they were taking on one of the most efficient killing systems we know of - the human immune system.