A Brother's Gift on the Operating Table

On December 23, 1954, twenty-three-year-old Ronald Herrick lay on an operating table at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, perfectly healthy, waiting to be cut open. In the adjacent operating room, his identical twin brother Richard was dying. Chronic nephritis had ravaged both of Richard's kidneys, and without intervention, he had weeks to live. Dr. Joseph E. Murray and his surgical team had never attempted anything like this.…