Origins
"Peter Bent Brigham Hospital on Huntinton Avenue and Francis Street.", January 1963, Northeasern University Library Digital Repository Service
Legends
The idea of organ transplantation may have derived from ancient legends. These legends were made to be fictitious; there had been no research put into this field at the time.
"According to the Celtic custom, no maimed person could rule, and Nuada was removed from power. But who should turn up on his doorstep but Miach, a celebrated physician. After impressing the half-blind doorkeeper by replacing his bad eye with a good one from a cat, they easily gained access to Nuada himself....
Miach had Nuada's own long-since buried hand dug up and placed on the stump. Over it, Miach chanted one of the best known of old Gaelic charms, enjoining each sinew, each nerve, each vein, and each bone to unite, and in three days the hand and arm were as if they had never been parted...."
~ A History of Organ Transplantation: Ancient Myths to Modern Practice, by David Hamilton, 2012
Skin Grafting
Before organ transplants were practiced, doctors would graft skin from one part of the body to another to repair wounds and burns. In 1912, experimental surgeon Alexis Carrel won a Nobel Prize for his contributions to transplant surgery by inserting human organs into dogs.
Alexis Carrel, 1912, Nobel Foundation Archive
"The quality of life is more important than life itself."
~Alexis Carrel