Surgeons first became interested in organ transplantation through advances in the surgical rejoining of blood vessels, and research dates from 1902 when the Austrian physicist Ullman transplanted a dog's kidney to its head while still enabling it to urinate.
肝臟移植難度最高外科醫生們會對器官移植感興趣，最初是由於血管吻合術的進步，一九○二年奧國醫師 Ullman 將狗的腎臟移到它的頭部並順利排出尿液後，人體器官移植的研究便從此開始。