South African medical technician (b. June 1926, Ngcangane, Transkei region, S.Af.—d. May 29, 2005, Langa, S.Af.), was credited with having secretly assisted Christiaan Barnard in the first successful heart transplant in 1967, despite his lack of education, formal medical training, or official credentials and the fact that it was illegal for a black man to touch a white patient. Later rumours that he had never actually wielded surgical tools during Barnard’s historic procedure sometimes overshadowed Naki’s genuine achievements. He was born in a small rural village and at age 14 moved to Cape Town to find employment. He worked as a gardener at the University of Cape Town and as a self-taught lab technician; he eventually assisted in experimental transplant operations on laboratory animals. Naki retired in 1991 on a gardener’s pension, but in 2002 he was awarded the Order of Mapungubwe for his contributions to medical science. In 2003 he received an honorary master’s degree in medicine from the University of Cape Town.
Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.
If you think a reference to this article on "Hamilton Naki" will enhance your Web site,
blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article,
and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.
You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.