A transplant makes history
As Harvard celebrates its 375th anniversary, the Gazette is examining key moments and developments over the University’s broad and compelling history. In late 1954, Richard Herrick was dying. Just 23 years old, he had been discharged from the Coast Guard months earlier and had come home to Massachusetts to reconnect with his family, which included his twin brother, Ronald. But the joy of his reunion was tempered by Herrick’s diagnosis of kidney disease, which at the time was often a death sentence. By October, he was a patient at the Public Health Service Hospital in Brighton, Mass. His health was worsening. His family kept a vigil by his bedside, but had been told that his kidneys were failing and that there was little hope of a cure. Yet Herrick’s doctor recalled that not far away, at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and Harvard Medical School (HMS), some doctors and scientists were working on...