A team of doctors from Britain, France, Italy and Australia, attached a hand from a brain-dead French man to a New Zealander with an amputated forearm.

In a world where body parts are cloned, this breakthrough may seem unexciting. However, Clint Hallam, the 48-year-old businessman who volunteered to participate in the experiment, is thrilled. He told Australian television, from his hospital bed in Lyon, ``It's probably a breakthrough as important as the first heart transplant.''

The operation, conducted by a team led by Professor Earl Owen from the Centre for Microsurgery in Sydney and the Jean-Michel Dubernard Lyon's Edouard Herriot Hospital, took over 13 hours.

The donor limb, which was removed from a middle-aged Frenchman when his life support machine was switched off, was of similar size and colour to Hallam's arm.

The surgeons first pinned together the forearm bones. They restored the blood supply tothe arm by linking up the arteries. Once this was done, the arm regained its colour and began to look ``alive''. The tendons and muscles were then matched and joined.

The lengthiest part of the surgery was to suture together the three main nerves in the lower forearm. The skin was then stitched together loosely and the arm placed in a comfortable position.

Hallam is not allowed to move his arm, which will remain anaesthetised for a few weeks.

The British member of the team, Professor Nadey Hakim, director of the transplant unit at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, West London, said he was hopeful that the patient would gain full use of his new arm.

He said, ``At the moment we are at the very early stages and the patient is not allowed to move the limb, but the operation went extremely well. Over the coming months we hope he will develop full use of the arm.''

He said that it would be a year before the nerves in the fingertips began to function, but that in time it was hoped that Hallam would regainnearly all, if not total use, of his right arm and hand.

Prof Hakim said there was a breakthrough in the development of drugs that could suppress a patient's immune system almost perfectly and therefore prevent rejection of the new limb.

What is not known, however, is the long-term effect this drug cocktail would have on Hallam.

Controversy over the ethics of this form of transplantation is bound to be raised. The possibility of death or serious complications, say critics of limb transplants, does not warrant the transplant of non-vital organs.

Dr Hakim, however, feels that in the field of medicine, he who dares, wins. ``You have to dare in medicine or it does not advance and what we have done here is to dare.'' He described it as ``an incredibly exciting breakthrough'' and added, ``As a professional transplant surgeon, to see a man restored with an arm is tremendously satisfying.''

As with all scientific developments today, this breakthrough also contained elements of fierce competition. Anotherteam of surgeons, based in Louisville in Kentucky, United States, had announced in July that they were planning to carry out an identical operation by the end of the year.

However, the Lyon team was able to find their patient and donor first.