Video: 'Remembering Marvin Miller,Joseph Murray, Earl Carroll'

(Thursday, December 23, 1954, 11:15 a.m. EST) — The first successful human kidney transplant took place today at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston as a surgical team led by Dr. Joseph Murray removed a kidney from 23-year-old Ronald Herrick and implanted it in Herrick’s twin brother, Richard, who was dying of chronic nephritis.

Because the donor and recipient were identical twins, tissue rejection was not an issue. Richard Herrick lived until 1962; Ronald Herrick died in 2010.