Associated Press dispatch from March 15, 1934:
BERKELY, Calif., March 15---(AP) Science gave five hours of life to a dog here today after he had apparently died. Revived, the dog breathed and barked and then succumbed early today for the last time. But Dr. Robert E. Cornish, research biologist and creator of the means of resuscitation, said he hoped the experiment may mean that many of the human lives lost through suffocation can be saved if the victim is reached in time.
Five minutes after physicians pronounced the animal dead, he was placed on a teeter-totter board, with which Dr. Cornish has been experimenting for a year under the theory the motion would force circulation of the blood to resume, in combination with artificial respiration and oxygen.A psysiological salt solution was injected into the femeral artery to check coagulation of the blood which follows death and to stimulate the heart. The solution contains defibrinated blood, blood from which the clots have been removed. It is saturated with oxygen and contains adrenalin, a powerful heart stimulent, and heparin, a liver extract which exercises a strong anti-clotting effect.
Two minutes after the work of resuscitation began, the first faint heart beat was detected. Nineteen minutes later, the dog began breathing regularly and deeply. Nearly two and a half hours later, he barked.
Associated Press dispatch from April 24, 1934:
BERKELY, Calif., April 24---(AP) Science watched anxiously over a sleeping dog today, hoping for a definite indication the animal would regain consciousness. The dog has lain unconscious for ten days in a University of California laboratory, ever since it was asphyxiated and restored to life by Dr. Robert Cornish. Dr. Cornish is the man who put several dogs to death and restored their physical functions, but was unable to bring them back to consciousness. He found that the heart once stopped, could be made to pump blood into the arteries again, but that a diminishing supply of blood finally caused the heart to stop beating forever.
In his latest experiment, he injected a fluid into the dog's veins to supply something for the heart to pump again, with the result that the dog has remained alive since April 13, and has even given signs of regaining consciousness. Light causes the dog to blink his eyes, Dr. Cornish said, and a fly on his ear causes the animal to twitch. The signs indicate, the scientist said, that it is not impossible for the brain cells to be restored. If the eye's retina can repair itself, he believes other brain centers may be restored in time. The dog was fed at first by injections, but now is being given food through the mouth.
Associated Press dispatch from May 3, 1934:
BERKELY, Calif., May 3---(AP) In the twentieth day of its scientifically restored life, Dr. R.E. Cornish's dog almost sat up here today. The animal, which had milk-soaked biscuits added to its liver diet, attempted to rise on its front legs, Dr. Cornish said.
"Thirteen," as Dr. Cornish calls the dog because it was revived April 13 after being clinically dead for four minutes, appears to want to walk, the young scientist said. He stated that he plans to rig a "creeper" device if necessary to aid "Thirteen" in getting back on his four feet again.
From the Associated Press, October 15, 1934:
BERKELEY, Calif., Oct. 15 (AP)---A request that he be permitted to attempt to resuscitate executed criminals in the interests of science was made today to the governors of Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada by Dr. Robert E. Cornish, who successfully revived a clinically killed dog in experiments to restore life. Dr. Cornish, who put a mongrel to death in his laboratory April 13 and revived the animal, asked the governors' cooperation in carrying out his proposed experiments. Should such permission be granted, Dr. Cornish stated that legally such an executed prisoner, if revived, would be free, but he added the prisoner would consent to serving a life term. In his letters to the governors, Dr. Cornish declared he would not proceed without the consent of the prisoner, his attorney, or relatives.
Dr. Cornish's letter to the governors read:
Experiments in my laboratory at the University of California, with which I was formerly connected, have confirmed and amplified the 30 year old experiments of Dr. George Crile, which indicted that it is often readily possible to restore life to dead animals, provided the heart has been stopped only a few minutes. To properly perfect the process so it might become of service to humanity, it is desirable to test some of the methods on human beings.
Certain prisoners in your state suffer the death penalty, and I feel that some of these men might welcome an opportunity to do a final good deed for humanity and civilization, in this way also to some extent mitigating a terrible dishonor to their once good names. I feel that if we were permitted to try some of our new resuscitation methods, with the prisoner's consent, on a few prisoners immediately after their legal execution, results might be obtained which would end in the saving of thousands of human lives.
Lawyers tell me that if such a prisoner were brought back to life after execution, he would be legally free, and you may thus hesitate to turn a murderer loose. But I feel that this is only a legal technicality, and the prisoner himself might not object to spending the remainder of his second life in prison, if his life were thus restored to him."
Dr. Cornish added that it was difficult for him to explain the full purpose of his experiments in the letters, and requested appointments with the state executives. The young Berkeley biologist recently gained worldwide attention with his experiments on a dog nicknamed "Thirteen" because it was put to death in his laboratory on Friday, April 13. He said he revived the animal after its heart had stopped beating for four minutes. The resuscitated dog has shown steady but slow improvements since then, Dr. Cornish said, in its apparent return to normal life. The states of Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado have lethal gas chambers in which to carry out executions.
PHOENIX, Oct. 15--(AP)---Dr. Robert E. Cornish, Berkeley scientist, will not be able to experiment on executed convicts. "There will be nothing doing like that in my prison," Gov. B.B. Moeur said tersely today in reply to a question whether he would grant the permission. There was also doubt as to whether Dr. Cornish's experiment could be worked successfully on Arizona executed criminals because the method is by lethal gas which paralyzes the brain and heart.
RENO, Nev., Oct. 15--(AP)--Acting Governor Morley Griswold of Nevada was traveling on a campaign trip through the southern part of the state today and could not be reached of Dr. Robert E. Cornish of Berkeley, Cal., that he be permitted to attempt to resuscitate criminals executed in Nevada's lethal gas chamber. It was recalled here, however, that a similar request from a San Francisco physician was denied by Governor Frederick B. Balzar at the time Everett Mull, alias John Hall, was executed a year or two ago.
CANON CITY, Colo., Oct. 15--(AP)--An experiment in which a Colorado convict might be revived after he was executed, proposed by Dr. Robert E. Cornish at Berkeley, Cal., would be impossible under the states present laws, Warden Roy Best of Colorado prison said today.
