Kidneys, in the Hebrew tradition, along with the heart were considered to be the most important internal organs, the seat of human personality and emotion. The ancient Egyptians, who probably informed some of the Old Testament views on the organ, left it outside of their mummies, to be examined by the judging Gods. Modern medicine held a different reverence for kidneys – as the organs that purified the body. Kidneys were one of the first organs to be used in attempted transplantation, due to their relatively easy to reach position, yet still it took five transplants failing completely after the first day, before one temporarily succeeded.

On this day, June 17, in 1950, a surgeon team at the Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, near Chicago, Illinois, transplanted a kidney from a cadaver into Ruth Tucker, who was suffering from polycistic kidney disease.

Tucker’s kidney only worked for about ten months, before being rejected (immunosuppresive drugs were not yet developed at the time), but that was enough time to give her other, healthy kidney to heal.