One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Three Year Old Cornea
October 28th, 2008
OSLO (Reuters Life!) – Bernt Aune’s transplanted cornea has been in use for a record 123 years — since before the Eiffel Tower was built.
“This is the oldest eye in Norway — I don’t know if it’s the oldest in the world,” Aune, an 80-year-old Norwegian and former ambulance driver, told Reuters by telephone on Thursday. “But my vision’s not great any longer.”
He had a cornea transplanted into his right eye in 1958 from the body of an elderly man who was born in June 1885. The operation was carried out at Namsos Hospital, mid-Norway.
