The organ thieves : the shocking story of the first heart transplant in the segregated South Cover Image

Book

The organ thieves : the shocking story of the first heart transplant in the segregated South / Chip Jones.

Jones, Charles, 1952- (author.).

Summary:

In 1968 Bruce Tucker, a black man, went into Virginia's top research hospital with a head injury that would prove fatal. His heart was taken out of his body and put into the chest of a white businessman-- without permission of Tucker's family. Jones exposes the horrifying inequality surrounding Tucker's death. The circumstances surrounding his death reflect the long legacy of mistreating African Americans that began more than a century before with cadaver harvesting-- and culminated in efforts to win the heart transplant race in the late 1960s. -- adapted from jacket.

Record details

ISBN: 9781982107529
ISBN: 1982107529
Physical Description: viii, 390 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps, portraits ; 24 cm
Edition: First Gallery books hardcover edition.
Publisher: New York : Gallery Books/Jeter Publishing, [2020]
Copyright: ©2020

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-338) and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

Part one. Roots. Case of the missing heart -- The resurrectionists -- The anatomy men -- "The limbo of the unclaimed" -- Part two. The race. Breaking the heart barrier --Heart on ice -- Restless genius -- The glass jar -- Foreign exchange -- Finish line -- Part three. Reckoning. The fall -- His brother's heart -- The scream -- "Facts and circumstances" -- Part four. Troubles, trials, and tribulations. Rejection -- The making of a medical celebrity -- The defender -- Relative death -- Time of trial -- Friends in high places -- Shaping of a verdict --The unresolved case of Bruce Tucker -- Down in the well -- Epilogue. The soul of medicine -- Afterword. Unhealed history.