To the Editor:—
It was most interesting to read "In the Year 2000" ( MEDICAL NEWS, JAMA191, Jan 4, 1965, adv p 31). I believe the legal problems will be enormously complex in the era of organ transplants. Transplantation of an animal head has been successful in at least one case, according to reports I have read. If such a procedure will be feasible any time in the future in human surgery, we shall face extra-ordinarily new medicolegal problems, regarding identity, family relationships, property ownership, etc. Whose identity will such a person have? The identity of the ex-proprietor of the head, or of the ex-proprietor of the body? To which family will he belong? If the one ex-proprietor was a licensed surgeon, the other one a licensed attorney, which license will the composite person have? Which property, bank account, and debt will be his? From which line will he inherit,