Organ transplantation

“ Fuzzy huddled on Dal's shoulder as if he could sense his master's excitement. Very few races under contract with Hospital Earth ever attempted their own major surgery. If a Moruan surgeon had walked into a tight spot in the operating room, it could be a real test of skill to get him—and his patient—out of it, even on a relatively simple procedure. But organ-transplantation, with the delicate vascular surgery and micro-surgery that it entailed, was never simple. ”

“ Thousands of families have made the same selfless decision and have given the gift of life to someone in need of an organ or tissue transplantation. Today, approximately 55,000 Americans are on the national organ transplant waiting list, hoping for a second chance. Yet, every day, 10 people will die because organs are not available. These tragic deaths are unnecessary. Our country has a large number of people who qualify as organ donors-but many still have not chosen to become donors. ”

“ Thanks to the resilience of our organ donation and transplantation professionals and the caring nature of the American people, more than 39,000 life-saving or life-enhancing organ transplants were performed in the United States last year from both living and deceased donors. ”

“ The generosity for which the American people have always been known shines clearly today in the willingness of many people to become organ and tissue donors so that others might live or have an opportunity to enjoy a fuller life. Thousands of Americans will receive an extraordinary gift this year-a kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, a combination of heart and lung, skin, a cornea, bone, or bone marrow. The great majority of these gifts will have been possible only because a caring American agreed to donate an organ or tissue for transplantation. ”

“ Encouragement of organ and tissue donation must always be accompanied, of course, by thorough reflection and complete information. Recent medical and technological developments are posing new moral and ethical questions about transplantation in certain circumstances. Individuals, and society as a whole, must carefully consider these questions so that we never undercut our reverence for the sanctity God vests equally in the life of every person, from the moment of conception until natural death. ”

“ The Director may nominate, in writing, any medical practitioner to be the designated officer of a hospital for the purposes of this Act.
PART II
REMOVAL OF ORGAN AFTER DEATH
Authorities may remove organ after death
5.— (1) The designated officer of a hospital may, subject to and in accordance with this section, authorise, in writing, the removal of any organ from the body of a person who has died in the hospital for the purpose of the transplantation of the organ to the body of a living person. ”

“ All Americans must know what they can do to consent to become organ and tissue donors. By completing a uniform donor card and carrying it at all times, anyone can give the gift of life to people in desperate need of organs and tissues for transplantation. ”

“ The bill contains a highly objectionable provision that would delay the implementation of HHS' final Organ Procurement and Transplantation rule for 90 days. This rule, which was strongly validated by an Institute of Medicine report, provides a more equitable system of treatment for over 63,000 Americans waiting for an organ transplant; its implementation would likely prevent the deaths of hundreds of Americans. Since almost 5,000 people die each year waiting for an organ transplant, we must be allowed to move forward on this issue and implement the rule without further delay. ”

“ The need for donors far surpasses the supply. Current medical technology enables the transplantation of organs and tissues including kidney, heart, heart-lung, lung, liver, pancreas, skin, cornea, bone, and bone marrow. ”

“ In 2002, 24,851 organ transplants and 32,744 corneal transplants were performed in the United States. In addition, the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry facilitated an average of 173 transplants each month. ”

“ It is a practical rule with surgeons that when a dangerous loss of blood has to be made good, the blood required for transfusion must be obtained from an individual not only of the same species and family, but also of the same sex as that of the patient. The parallel between transfusion and transplantation is at once evident. If I am correct in my views, when surgeons seek to transfuse blood, instead of being content with injections of normal salt solution they must take the blood not merely from one of the same species, family and sex, but of a similar degree of masculinity or femininity. ”

“ In recent years we have seen the miracle of terminally ill patients receiving a second chance at life with a new heart, liver, lung, or kidney. We have seen children with leukemia regain their health through bone marrow transplants; we have witnessed the restoration of sight to the blind through new corneas; and we have seen thousands of Americans resuming normal lives after receiving a transplanted organ or tissue. But many others still wait, and many die waiting for a suitable organ to become available. ”

“ Nearly 18,000 people are diagnosed each year with illnesses for which blood stem cell transplantation—requiring marrow or cord blood—is the best treatment option. Over 65 percent of these individuals require donors from outside their own family. ”

“ It is interesting to remember that while it is possible to increase the mineral particles of soda, potash, lime, iron, 75 silica and magnesia in the blood and lymph, it is practically impossible for us to increase the animal contents of the cells by any method of medication or dieting known to us. Only Life can produce this change in the cells, and only this method of gland-transplantation has furnished a means of impressing Life into service to work for us in this matter. ”

“ My greatest number of men come for impotency, next for prostatitis, and many for a general improvement in health. Many come with but one purpose—to prolong their lives. I believe that those who receive gland transplantation will live much longer than without it. Possibly as much as from 10 to 25 years can be added. Then successive transplants can be made, and we have no idea how long they will live. Their skin takes on the appearance of youth. I know that after the ovaries have been transplanted into women who have none their menses return on a 4-day period regularly. ”

“ The Blood# lends itself in an ideal manner to transplantation, or, as it has long been called, _transfusion_. Being always a homoplastic transfer, the new blood is not always tolerated by the old, in which case biochemical changes occur, resulting in haemolysis, which corresponds to the disintegration of other unsuccessful homoplastic grafts. ”

“ Brinkley say that in the case of a man who has had both glands removed by surgical operation, the transplantation will produce new glands for the man, and yet he has had two successes to offset several failures in this very result, without any clue to why the success followed in the one case and not in the other. ”

“ The cures that I have effected by gland transplantation up to the present time are enough to justify me for all of my work and efforts along this new line of science. Should I never operate again, I feel justly repaid and know that I have started something that will go on and on and live forever. Gland transplantation for the cure of disease within the next ten years will be as common as the removal of a diseased appendix is now. ”

“ It follows from this that the implanting of living bone is to be preferred to the implanting of dead bone or of foreign material. We believe that transplanted living bone when placed under favourable conditions survives and becomes incorporated with the bone with which it is in contact, and does not merely act as a scaffolding. We believe also that the retention of the periosteum on the graft is not essential, but, by favouring the establishment of vascular connections, it contributes to the survival of the graft and the success of the transplantation. ”

“ You can hardly pick up a daily paper without reading an account of some surgeon performing a wonderful operation of transplanting bone or tissue from some animal to replace that which was diseased 81 in the human. Why not borrow what we need from the animal? We use their flesh for food. We also use their gland substances in the fresh or dried form to supply our bodies with whatever we may not possess.
80
THE TOGGENBURG GOATS
My first efforts in gland transplantation were directed towards the cure of sterility. ”

“ On several recent occasions, I have asked the American people to be aware of the opportunities to donate their organs, and I have made special pleas for young children in need of liver transplants. The response proved to be overwhelming. Tragically, however, many desperately ill persons, including young children, have died while awaiting a suitable organ. ”

“ In ordinary cases of gland-transplantation into women, where the patient is in good physical condition, with no disease of the organs, the operation is as simple as in the case of the man. The speculum discloses the condition of the vagina, and the insertion of the new ovary is into the mucous membrane of the vagina, leaving the goat-ovary about four inches distant from the woman’s. The only incision made is a small one, about one inch long, painless under local anesthetic, the purpose of the 24 incision being to get a blood supply for the goat-ovary. ”

“ In that commonly fatal condition of the arteries which follows rapidly upon the state of blood pressure known as hardening of the arteries, or arterio-sclerosis, a practically incurable condition hitherto, the results obtained by the goat-gland transplantation are miraculously swift. When the arteries are, as the doctor puts it, “as hard as pipe-stems,” they grow in a few weeks, sometimes in a week, soft and pliable. ”

“ Every day, 17 people in America die while waiting for a transplant. Yet, all of us have the power to help: one donor can save up to eight lives through organ donation, and can improve another 75 lives through eye and tissue donation. If you have not signed up as an organ donor, we need your help to fill the gap between the availability of organs and people who need them. I encourage all Americans to give hope to those awaiting a match by visiting organdonor.gov for organ, eye, and tissue donation, and bloodstemcell.hrsa.gov for marrow donation. ”

“ I have the most positive knowledge that when the operation is rightly performed the glands do NOT slough, and my knowledge is founded upon the hard facts of much experience. In another ten years I shall know more than I know today because I shall have added to my facts, and among those facts there may be some which confirm the hope of the woman of forty alluded to above that this gland transplantation may hold the condition of youth steady as something static, which will not be suffered to pass. ”

“ Glands have proved much superior to any animal extract or serum in this class of cases. Often in serums the poison elements are retained, but not the nutritive. We use the whole goat gland, as a rule, because we do not know in what part of it the hormones hide. The attempted transplantations of kidneys have thus far failed because the kidney product is waste matter, not live cells as in the case of the interstitial glands. ”