Word: lowman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Four weeks after her radical kidney-transplant operation at Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (TIME, April 28), Mrs. Gladys Lowman, 31, died last week. Main cause: weakened defense against infection due to lack of white blood corpuscles. Forced to transplant a kidney from a child with no genetic relation to Mrs. Lowman, physicians had the problem of countering antibodies that would have rejected the alien organ. For the first time, they tried to solve it by destroying the antibodies' source, the patient's bone marrow, with X rays. Though new bone marrow was injected, it failed...
...operation's aftermath came the shocking discovery that Mrs. Lowman, mother of two children, had been born with only one kidney. Now she had none-and no human can stay alive without a kidney. Surgeon Reese's next swift decision was to transfer her to Boston's Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, where he knew that a medical team could keep her alive temporarily with an artificial kidney. Armco Steel Corp., which employs two of her brothers, flew Mrs. Lowman and Dr. Reese to Boston at once in a company...
...desperate case of Mrs. Lowman, doctors operated for the first time on a new theory. Since antibodies are born in blood cells produced in the bone marrow, it might be possible to curb them by destroying the marrow itself. No mechanism would then remain to reject a transplanted tissue. New bone marrow, from several donors to minimize antibody hostility, could then be injected intravenously...
Taking Over. For three hours under an X-ray machine. Mrs. Lowman was subjected to massive radiation that killed all her bone marrow. Her white blood corpuscle count fell from the normal 5,000 per cubic centimeter to zero. Then a kidney from a four-year-old girl (whose treatment for hydrocephalus required kidney removal) was transplanted to Mrs. Lowman. The Boston surgeons attached it to the femoral arteries and veins below the groin in her right thigh. She received a dozen marrow transfusions before and during the operation, mainly from her brothers. With her count of disease-fighting white...
Last week the Brigham physicians were still faced with the task of offsetting the radiation destruction of both white and red corpuscles, still listed Mrs. Lowman's condition as ''critical." They were unwilling to comment in any way on their achievement. But it was a fortnight after the operation, and the patient was still alive. Moreover, use of the artificial kidney was gradually being eased, and there were hopeful signs that the transplanted kidney was beginning to function...