A doctor is demanding his pound of flesh from his soon-to-be-former wife as part of their divorce.

Richard Batista, a surgeon who split from his wife claiming that she had an affair, is asking that she now return the kidney that he gave her. “I saved her life and then, to be betrayed like this, is unfathomable. It's incomprehensible,” Mr Batista said. “I feel humbled and betrayed and disregarded. This divorce is killing me.”

Mr Batista, 49, a vascular surgeon in Long Island, married his wife, Dawnell, in 1990. After two years, though, the relationship began a “slow downward trend”, he said.

Mrs Batista, 44, a doctor's assistant, had her first kidney transplant as a baby, with her father acting as the donor. She tried again years later with a kidney donated by her brother, but her body rejected both organs.

Doctors then discovered that Mr Batista's kidneys were a 1-in-700,000 match, and in June 2001 he gladly donated one, allowing her to skip a waiting list of 6,748 people awaiting kidneys in New York State.

“She was my wife. My priority was to save her life, save her life and future of our children and hopefully with that in mind keep the marriage alive,” he told a press conference.

“When I donated ... the next day I was on my feet going down the hallway to visit her in the adjoining room - there was no greater feeling on this planet. I did the right thing for her to this day. I could still do it again.”

The transplant certainly gave Mrs Batista a new lease of life. She went back to college to earn a master's degree in nursing and took up karate, but Mr Batista claimed that she repaid his kindness with infidelity. He said that she had an affair with a physical therapist that she began seeing after she injured herself while working towards her black belt. The therapist has denied the allegation.

“It put a hole in my heart that still exists,” Mr Batista said. “To this day, I'm a man of pride. To be betrayed that way, humiliated - I can't even begin to say.”

He said that the unpleasantness of their divorce began on the first day of proceedings, when she served him with papers while he was in surgery.

He accuses his wife of denying him access to their three daughters, aged 14, 11 and 8, and is demanding $1.5million (£1 million), which he claims the kidney is worth. “As part of the litigation, we are asking for the value of the kidney that he gave his wife,” said Dominick Barbara, his lawyer. “In theory we actually asked for the return of the kidney.”

Mrs Batista's lawyer declined to comment.

Under US law, an organ donation is considered a gift, and organs cannot be bought and sold.

Legal experts said that Mr Batista had no prospect of getting his kidney back. “I've been in this business over 40 years and I've never heard of that,” said Seymour J.Reisman, a divorce lawyer. “It's not marital property, not a marital asset you can put a price on.”

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