Even though the first practical procedures and experiments with tissue and organ transplantation began as early as the end of the 19th century, real discoveries and improvements regarding techniques experienced the greatest shift during the 20th century. In the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in 1933, the cornea was transplanted for the first time in Zagreb, exactly 28 years after the first successfully transplanted cornea in Austria.
The hallmark of any good healthcare system is following new information and trends and sharing your own knowledge with the world. This enables multidirectional communication between experts and researchers, for the purpose of jointly improving human knowledge. The same goes for transplantation processes; preparations for transplantations include mastering the surgical technique on experimental animals, as well as visits and stays in foreign transplantation centres.
Making transplantation possible is a much more complex process than just mastering surgery; in order for it to occur, preparation and post-operational processes are essential; both medical and, for example, biochemical knowledge (discoveries of immunosuppressive drugs, etc.), and the cooperation of the research communities on the national and the global level are important. In addition to the scientific communities themselves, laws that allow the donation of organs and the use of organs from deceased persons are also important.
