ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the roles of the participants in the catastrophic disease process. It discusses history of the research and therapy of kidney and heart ailments. The chapter also examines history with emphasis on the medical problems which have arisen and the social and legal questions they pose. The artificial kidney, the backbone of the modern treatment of irreversible kidney disease, had its origins in rather inhospitable circumstances. After the war, work on the development of the artificial kidney stepped up rapidly. The artificial kidney proved highly successful in the treatment of acute kidney trauma and disease such as battlefield injuries and tubular necrosis. The lack of a back-up system similar to a dialysis machine and the dependence on cadaver organs has contributed to making heart transplantation an infrequently employed experimental procedure. It is apparent that all areas of medical knowledge were not perfectly conjoined in the early days of cardiac replacement.
