History and Evolution of Liver Transplantation

Historically, in ancient civilization, man had already imagined changes in the morphology, structure and function of the human body. Egyptian and Greco-Roman mythology provided examples of the metamorphoses sung by Homer and Ovid, symbolic incarnations of the “comedie humaine” with its strength, weakness, vices and virtues. The liver has been the noble organ, the organ of life from time immemorial-liver in English, Leber in German, derived from the verb to live. An Indian legend from the 12th century B.C recounts the power of Shiva, who xenotransplanted an elephant head onto a child induce the Indian god Gaesha.[1] In ancient China, Yue-Jen (407-310 B.B.) induced anesthesia lasting 3 days by “the absorption of extremely strong wine, opened up the chest of two soldiers and after examining them, exchanged their hearts and transplanted them”. The first reference to the concept of organ transplantation and replacement for therapeutic purposes appears to be Hua-To (136 to 208 A.D.) who replaced diseased organs with healthy ones in patients under anesthesia induced with a mixture of Indian hemp.