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Heads: Transplants, Revivification & Maintenance Isolated From A Body

This book used to be sold through Loompanics, but I don't know if it is anymore.

http://bmei.org/jbem/volume4/num1/bookreview.htm

Book Review:

If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive ... Discorporation and U.S. Patent 4,666,425

By Chet Fleming
Published by Polinym Press, $12.95
Reviewed by Ed Payne, M.D.

I expected this book to be sensational and superficial. It is, however, quite substantive and provocative. Chet Heming is a "polinym", a public name to "retain some degree of privacy" The author is not a Christian but believes that "religious" leaders should be consulted to ethical answers for this bizarre technology.
For more than a decade the author has been on a sort of "quest" about the matter of "discorporation", the technical name for keeping a severed head "alive". This quest "partly" caused him to go into patent law, specializing in biotechnology. For five years he studied "as much as I could" about biochemistry and medical technology. He has even applied for and been granted a patent (#4,666,425) from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, entitled, "Device for Perfusing an Animal Head". This patent gives him the right to "stop or slow down discorporation research in America unless any researchers agree to follow certain safeguards..."

This man is serious! He has a concern about which he has taken steps to allow ethical discussion before the technology is actually successful.

Chapters 1 - 3 review the actual research that has been done in this area. Most research was done in the 1960's with little being done since. Readers may be surprised to find, however, the degree of success that was achieved and that makes discorporation less than a scientific fantasy.

Chapters 4 - 7 discuss the legal issues and is an interesting discussion of patent law and the legislation necessary to govern such research.
Chapters 8 - 9 discuss what the technical possibilities are, what life would be like as a severed head, who might get the operation, and how society might be affected.

Chapters 10 - 11 discuss "Religious issues." The author's attempt in this area is a breath of fresh air for ethical discussions by non-Christians.

"Instead of trying to ignore or belittle their input, scientists should welcome them (religious leaders) to the discussion and treat them with respect, with the hope that they will contribute instead of disrupting the debate."

While he is limited in his accuracy of Biblical knowledge because he is not a believer, he makes a detailed and honest attempt to apply Judeo-Christian ethics to discorporation. On the one hand some criticisms that he makes of some Christian positions are all too accurate and humbling. On the other hand his religious answers lack the Biblical depth and specificity that is both needed and possible.

Chapters 12 -16 discuss various technological and ethical issues.

The book is some 500 pages long, considerably more than one would expect to be devoted to a narrow topic. Part of its length is due to some redundancy of various subjects and issues. At times his detail is too extensive, causing tiresome reading.

Overall, it is a book that I recommend. The author has a style that is interesting and stimulating. He is honest about his concerns and is obviously committed to play whatever role that he can to bring attention to this issue. He is a wise man from whom others can profit in many areas. For example, he discusses how to deal with the press, a subject that many Christians in the spotlight should learn (p. 118). His work provides virtually everything a Christian ethicist would need as background to bring Biblical principles to bear on this grotesque possibility of modem science.
 
I've heard that blinking severed head story before, I have a feeling it was dismissed as a UL in an article i read somewhere.
There was a child born a few years ago who had just over half his brain missing, had no sight and no hearing and was (obviously) mentally retarded, he used to scream constantly, because of his condition they were pretty sure he was in constant pain, as i remember the parents were agonising over a decision to end his life, as all he would ever feel would be pain. Now theres a nice thought.

There's also a scientist, in Europe, i believe, who has allegedly transplanted monkey heads from one body to another, they didn't live long but he thinks he can perform the procedure on a human and has actually found someone willing to try it.

I wonder if i could get my head transplanted on to Mena Suvari's body...? :D
 
I thought that was a fact, the brain remains conscious for a few seconds after the head is chopped off the body. Why wouldn't it? You die from your brain not getting oxygen, and I'm sure starving your brain of blood wouldn't be instantaneous.

"Canibus is the ultimate executioner's dream / swingin' the guillotine / because whenever the head is severed from the human body with a sharp enough weapon / the brain remains conscious for ten seconds."
-Canibus, "Buckingham Palace"
 
I've read several times that, after decapitation, executioners would grab the head and attempt to lip-read the last words....

If the shock doesn't cause instantaneous death, I'd have thought it probable that the head survives for a short time. Hope not to find out, though (oh, there I am, over there....:( )
 
Don't like the sound of that.
'Oh, there's my body...I've got about ten seconds to be reattached...shit, I'm going to die...' 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1....

I hate knowing you are about to die...i's really depressing. Admittedly, I've been proved wrong on every occassion so far (obviously enough), but one day I'll be right, you see if I'm not...
 
Inverurie Jones said:
I hate knowing you are about to die...i's really depressing

I hate knowing you are about to die...the laundry's really depressing afterwards.

But one of these times, it's someone else's problem :D (or do I mean :eek!!!!: or :cross eye )
 
Oh, most definitely :D ...just think; some poor sods got to scoop me up, put me in a box, dig a hole and tip the whole lot in! At least I don't have to do it...
 
SliP said:
There's also a scientist, in Europe, i believe, who has allegedly transplanted monkey heads from one body to another, they didn't live long but he thinks he can perform the procedure on a human and has actually found someone willing to try it.

Yeah, I've seen the footage on TV and it quite disturbing because the monkey is alive but paralysed from the neck down. So it's just woken up and found out it can no longer move. The look on its face was awful. I can't remember how long it was alive for but it wasn't very long.

Perhaps when they finally sort out stem cell research and can make the nerves in the spine grow and reattach, then this sort of thing might have some sort of scientific value.
 
From a longer article on THE STRAIGHT DOPE:

"The aforementioned Dr. Fink believed the brain might remain conscious as long as 15 seconds; that's how long cardiac arrest victims last before blacking out. (Dr. Fink's colleague put the window of awareness at 5 seconds.) He also pointed out that people have remained alert after having had their spinal cords severed. Still, this didn't seem like the sort of question that could ever be conclusively resolved.

Or so I thought. Then I received a note from a U.S. Army veteran who had been stationed in Korea. In June 1989 the taxi he and a friend were riding in collided with a truck. My correspondent was pinned in the wreckage. The friend was decapitated. Here's what happened:

My friend's head came to rest face up, and (from my angle) upside-down. As I watched, his mouth opened and closed no less than two times. The facial expressions he displayed were first of shock or confusion, followed by terror or grief. I cannot exaggerate and say that he was looking all around, but he did display ocular movement in that his eyes moved from me, to his body, and back to me. He had direct eye contact with me when his eyes took on a hazy, absent expression . . . and he was dead."


The rest can be found here:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_262.html
 
Okay, the source is Pravda, but a good read nonetheless:

Scientists Revived Dead Man's Head

Nowadays, mankind understands that its requirements cannot be completely satisfied on the surface as it covers just one fifth of the planet. This makes people of the Earth penetrate into the sea depth that keep inexhaustible resources.

First steps in exploration of "the no sun world" have been already made. People create artificial algae plantations, pastures of fish, crustaceans and shellfish. Vast resources of manganese, iron and other minerals discovered in the ocean bottom will soon allow people build factories and plants on the continental shelf and to open mines there.

So, mankind is to explore the ocean depth thoroughly. Bt the human organism cannot function under water. Ikhtiander, the hero of the science-fiction novel The Amphibious Man by Alexander Belyayav could live under water only because a brilliant surgeon transplanted the shark gills to him. The invention of the author turned out to be so much attractive and believable that some people thought it was reality even at the end of the 1940s. Famous Soviet doctor F.Kopylov describes a curious fact in his book Stories About Surgeons.

A surgeon working in a remote part of the Soviet Union told that some village guy asked him to implant fish gills. Sharks could not be found in that part of the country and the man wanted to have cat-fish gills. The man was ready to endure any sufferings and stand any problems to have an opportunity to spend hours under water the same way the hero of the book by Alexander Belyayev did. The strange man even offered a receipt to the surgeon to state it was only the man's fault if he dies during the operation.

Until recently, operations of this kind have been impossible although medicine is highly developed today. Some time ago, the scientific world was shocked with a sensational statement. Another stunning operation was held in Cape Town, in the clinic that was once headed by K.Bernard and where human heart transplantation was successfully performed.

A black young man suffering from pulmonary deficiency, the result of neglected tuberculosis, was transplanted shark gills. The patient refused to have a transplanted lung for the following reason. First, he said he had no money to pay for the donor organ and for the operation. At the same time, he was offered the gills transplantation for free, at the expense of the scientific fund. Second, the guy was disappointed with his life on the surface and wanted to start everything from very beginning under water. The operation was a success. Doctors are closely watching if the transplanted organ operates well or not and prevent probable separation with special medicines.

If the above mentioned information is not a canard, a real amphibian man will be soon swimming in the ocean. Remember another novel by Alexander Belyayev, Professor Dowell's Head. Scientist Dowell created solution that allowed a human head live separately from the body. The hero of the book is sure that the invention will be of use for people. But educated readers may say this is nonsense. However, one should not be that categorical.

In 1902, famous Russian physiologist A.Kulebyako successfully performed reanimation of a child's heart (being taken away from a dead body, the heart continued functioning outside the organism within several hours). Further, the scientist decided to reanimate a human head.

First, the experiment was performed on a fish head. Special liquid, blood substitute, was brought to the head along blood vessels. The experiment brought astonishing results: the fish head moved the eyes and the fins, it opened and closed the mouth which proved that the head was still alive.

In 1928, physiologists S.Bryukhonenko and S.Chechulin demonstrated a living head of a haematherm, a dog. The dog head was rather active when connected up to a pump oxygenator. When a tampon with acid was put on the tongue of the dog head it made attempts to throw it away; but when a slice of sausage was put in the dog mouth, the dog head licked the lips. The dog eyes winked when felt the puff of air.

In 1959, Professor V.Demikhov also conducted several experiments with dog heads. The professor was absolutely sure that similar experiments allowed to sustain life in a human head as well.

Have similar experiments ever been performed on a human head? This issue is inevitably connected with moral and serious social problems that doctors may face if they decide to transplant the head of one man to the body of another. Information of this sort is always particularly classified.

In the mid-1970s, the press reported a sensational statement. Two neurosurgeons from Germany Walner Kraiter and Henry Courige managed to sustain life in an amputated human head within 20 days. A 40-year-old man was taken to the hospital after a traffic accident. The man's life could not be saved as his head was almost completely cut off the body.

Under those conditions, the neurosurgeons decided to maintain life in the brain of the victim. A life-support system was connected up to the head; the system managed to maintain the brain activity for about three weeks although the body of the man was already dead. What is more, this may sound shocking but the doctors got into contact with the head. The head could not speak as it had no throat, but the doctors could read its lips and saw that the head realized everything that happened to it.

Doctor Truman Doughty from Philadelphia performed an incredible experiment. In 1989, it turned out that his wife suffered from cancer. The tragic news encouraged the doctor to develop a life-support system. The disease grew progressively worse, and the doctor lost every hope for salvation of his wife. At that very period he decided to save the head.

The operation lasted for about six hours. Doctor Doughty knew perfectly well he could be charged with murder. The doctor ran an incredible risk, but as it turned out later he risked not in vain. The incredible experiment resulted in triumph. The doctor's wife did not doubt as to the necessity of the operation and gave her consent. For several years, Truman kept secret that the head of his wife was still alive. It was just recently that the world has learnt of the incredible experiment. Doctor Doughty says that his wife's head can even speak with the help of a special device. The plausibility of the above mentioned facts cannot be verified, but it is clear that scientific ideas that Alexander Belyayev stated in his books have become the reality.

Alexander Potapov
Kontinent

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/11456_medicine.html
 
Revival of a decapitated dog by Soviet scientists

THIS is a selection of the same videos in various formats, all of which purport to show a dog's head being revived after removal from the body. I believe that they (not the Soviets, merely the ubiquitous 'they') have also successfully carried out the same procedure with monkeys of some kind as well.

Perhaps those in the know can shed a bit more light on the subject....

The embedded link is dead. It led to a directory at the Wayback Machine containing multiple animation / video files. This directory can still be accessed at this revised URL:

http://movies02.archive.org/2/movies/Experime1940/

Most of the files in the directory are not accessible via these directory links at the Wayback Machine.

This one still provides a download of a crude mp4 transcription of the Soviet film:

https://web.archive.org/web/2003072...0/2/movies/Experime1940/Experime1940_64kb.mp4

Specific portrayal of the dog's head experiment occurs starting at 4+ minutes into the video.
 
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There's some opinions about the film here

www4.archive.org/movies/details- ... onid=19635

I think it's a fake but it is interesting (and rather amusing) all the same.

The originally posted link is dead. The MIA webpage can be accessed via this updated Wayback Machine URL. Other / later archived versions of the webpage are accessible there as well.

https://web.archive.org/web/2005040...b.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=19635
 
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Re: Revival of a decapitated dog by Soviet scientists

Mr Snowman said:
THIS is a selection of the same videos in various formats, all of which purport to show a dog's head being revived after removal from the body. I believe that they (not the Soviets, merely the ubiquitous 'they') have also successfully carried out the same procedure with monkeys of some kind as well.

Perhaps those in the know can shed a bit more light on the subject....
There was indeed an experiment done with a decapitated monkey head a few years ago. It was blinking and looking around. Unfortunately I can't remember who performed it to look it up and I'm not googling decapitated monkeys! I seem to also remember that it all got a bit vague when "they" were asked what the actual purpose of it was... :roll:
 
That was it, good work. I did a search but didn't find it on the board. I think it was before the boards time mind you. Gruesome stuff.
 
Very reminscnet of the pig head transplants. They showed some footage on some Channel 4 documentary on medical ethics (or something similar about us exploiting the natural world) a few years back - nasty stuff. I believe it has been stopped now though.

Or did I imagine the whole thing?

[edit: No (although pos. not pigs) it was "Against Nature" shown in August 1997:

The vindication of Frankenstein?

From artificial wombs and pregnant men to cloning and head transplants, the latest developments in science make scientists look like modern Frankensteins. Yet, some people insist that instead of censoring them, we should be encouraging them to go still further.

Cloning, for instance, scientists say, could bring enormous benefits if they were only allowed to develop the technology.

'Human cloning research will allow us to further our knowledge about the ageing process,' John Gillot believes. 'It will allow us to tackle disease in novel ways. We'll be able to culture and clone cells to fight cancer. Cloning of embryos might allow us to produce special kinds of cells which could really do a great job in terms of fighting off many diseases.'

Some people argue that dabbling with the unnatural is precisely what we should be doing. According to John Gillot, Victor Frankenstein should be regarded as a hero, not a villain.

'Victor Frankenstein, the father of the monster, was based on a real-life scientist, Humphry Davy - a man who championed scientific innovation and experimentation,' he says. 'Today there are plenty of Mary Shelleys - in fact people a lot worse than Mary Shelley - but where's our modern-day Humphry Davy. Where's our real-life Victor Frankenstein ? There aren't any, and that's a problem, because it's these kind of people who are going to take society forward through experimentation and innovation.'

Robert White is now thinking of defying his critics and performing a head transplant or a body transplant on a human, even though he will have to leave America to do this. He has patients who have put themselves forward for the operation - Craig Vetovitz, for example, who broke his neck in an accident.

'Yes, I'd like to be the first,' he says. 'There'll be complications the first time around, and I'm very well aware of the risks. But if I can promote and accelerate this type of research, yes, I'd be prepared to do it.'

'In the final analysis,' says Professor White, 'We'd be trying to save somebody's life - or if we want to be specific about it, someone's brain life, which in my judgement characterises us all. After all, our memories, personalities, capabilities, intelligence are located between our ears.'

Instead of glorifying nature, scientists argue that we should be celebrating progress. Rather than attacking science, we should applaud those scientists who dare to be called Dr Satan.

Source

See also

RDF who made the doc also made the wonderfully named "Dr Satan's Robot" (click for details).

but I'm not sure what came of this all.]
 
I hope that video was fake -- it was really disturbing. :shock:

Which just begs the question: did someone continue this (not on
camera) and try the experiment with a human? (Gulag
prisoners were supposedly plentiful.)
It seems to be the next step -- who in that era would
impede the progress of science by NOT continuing?

That thought really gives me the creeps...
(see the Esoteric thread on talking decapitated
heads for my feelings on the matter!)

TVgeek
 
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I watched that video (at work, yet) and wish I hadn't. :cross eye

Question: how would they keep the head alive between chopping it off and sticking the tubes in? Or do they put the tubes in first?

I told you I was no biologist.
 
Emperor said:
TVgeek said:
That thought really gives me the creeps...
(see the Esoteric thread on talking decapitated
heads for my feelings on the matter!)

Oooooo this one?:

www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=906

that sounded so good I had to scamper off and look it up ;)

That was the one -- I actually expressed my "views"
in the "What Really Scares Ya" thread... and was referred
to the "Talking Heads" by the good Mr. Rynner...
Still gives me the shivers... ;)

TVgeek
 
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The First Head Transplant: Stranger Than Fiction (Documentary)

Time - 21:00 - 22:00 (1 hour long)
When - Monday 17th July on five

Documentary following work done by scientists at the cutting edge of brain research during 1950 to 1970. It establishes the unique challenges presented by working with as complex, mysterious and delicate an organ as the brain, and the ethical dilemmas that such work throws up. By tracing the careers of both American and Russian researchers, it shows how Cold War politics influenced researchers into the brain - and asks how work from that period could again be relevant and influential today.
 
I think Emps has just been reading a TV guide, has posted the feral children thread as well ;)

BTW will try and watch both cheers!
 
LOL - I was just lining up my night's viewing and thought I'd share ;)

Crazy grim stuff - it was weird because there these awfully clever chaps justifying their work on medical grounds (even if it seemed a little after the fact: "Well if someone were to have just their head injured and we also had a quadraplegic who needed a new body then...") who in the end reminded me of not being much removed from the nasty boy next door in Toy Story who swapped all the toys bits round.

If they can sort the nerve damage issue out their research may come in handy but there is still a wall of the brain decaying too so I can't really see this being useful in all but a handful of cases.
 
It was the description of the subjects as 'subhuman primates' that freaked me out, even more than seeing the puppy grafted on to the dog's neck, and them both barking.
A primate is a being in it's own right, there's something disconcerting about referring to any animal as subhuman (non-human would have been less disturbing), but I suppose that's the view you would have to take if you see the experiments you're doing as benefitting a superior species, or race, for that matter.
I think it's the fact that the terminology bears some resemblance to that used by eugenicists that it's a bit disturbing- not necessarily just to folk who think all animals are equal and we shouldn't be experimenting on them, but also to humanists who aren't against animal experimentation, as there is always the worry that if one of these mad experimenty dudes lands up in a regime where some people are seen as subhuman, they'd clap their hands with glee and just get on with chopping bits off and sewing them onto places they weren't intended to be.
And how long would it be before cosmetic head transplants started, if they were implemented for medical reasons? You wouldn't have to go through getting your stomach stapled, or vast amounts of liposuction, or have saline bags inserted under your skin, if you could just have your head grafted on to a body you liked the look of. Ugh.
 
TV programme reveals the REAL Frankensteins

by DAVID LEAFE - Last updated at 22:00pm on 5th January 2007


Hidden deep in a Russian forest, and guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot intruders on sight, the medical research laboratories on the outskirts of Moscow were one of the Soviet Union's best-kept secrets.

So the carefully-vetted journalists who were allowed past the forbidding perimeter fence on a cold February morning in 1954 were both apprehensive and curious about what lay ahead. Led to a courtyard outside an austere brick building, they waited in the bright winter sunshine to find out why they had been summoned. For a few minutes, only the sound of birdsong and the rustling of leaves filled the air but then a door slowly opened to reveal experimental surgeon Vladimir Demikhov - accompanied by the strangest looking animal they had ever seen.

Blinking unhappily in the daylight as Demikhov paraded it on its lead, this unfortunate beast had been created by grafting the head and upper body of a small puppy on to the head and body of a fully-grown mastiff, to form one grotesque creature with two heads. The visitors watched in horror and fascination as both of the beast's mouths lapped greedily at a bowl of milk proffered by Demikhov's assistants.

Resembling something dreamed up by Mary Shelley's Dr Frankenstein, it seemed literally incredible. But as the Soviet propaganda machine informed the world, this canine curiosity was both very real - and a scientific triumph.

As revealed in a National Geographic documentary to be screened later this month, the creation of the two-headed dog was the first step in an astonishing race by Cold War scientists to achieve the seemingly impossible - the first ever human head transplant. In pursuing this medical goal, Vladimir Demikhov - and his American rival, Robert White - may seem to be the epitome of immoral scientists who ignored all ethical considerations in their pursuit of scientific advance. But in their own minds, they were brilliant pioneers prepared to think the unthinkable for the greater good of mankind.

Whichever view you take, they cannot simply be dismissed as gruesome fantasists for, as the programme warns, the obstacles which held them back from their ultimate goal are fast being eroded by modern science, and we may have to confront the reality of the first human head transplant much sooner than we care to think.

Although the world's first face transplant has already taken place, the notion of taking the head of one person and transferring it to the body of another still seems far-fetched. But back in the Fifties, despite being utterly incredible to many, it was a branch of science pursued by some of the most respected doctors of the day.

A Soviet hero, Vladimir Demikhov was renowned for his work in the Red Army hospitals during World War II. When peace came, he joined an elite team of Russian doctors ordered by Stalin to beat the West in the field of medicine at any cost. Labouring far from inquisitive eyes in a secret research complex outside Moscow and experimenting freely in his search for new ways of prolonging life, Demikhov was prepared to go where others did not dare.

He believed for example that it was possible to transplant organs like hearts and lungs in human beings. In those days, such a procedure seemed scarcely credible - but Demikhov proved it could be done. Often preferring to work in the dead of night, he showed that the heart and lungs could be taken from one dog and survive in the chest of another.

This laid the groundwork for such landmark operations as the first heart transplant, conducted by South African surgeon Dr Christiaan Barnard, nearly 20 years later. But Demikhov didn't stop there.

He was determined to prove that any human organ could be successfully transplanted, even the brain. To that end, he set about the challenge to create a two-headed dog.

The lights of his laboratory shone into the small hours of that February morning in 1954 as he and his team set about the intricate task of stitching the upper half of the puppy to the larger animal and connecting their blood vessels and windpipes.

As dawn approached, they waited to see if their creation would regain consciousness. Their first sign of success came when the puppy's head woke up and yawned. It was quickly joined by the larger 'natural' head of the mastiff, which gave its new addition a puzzled look and tried to shake it off.

The composite dog was ready to be revealed to the world. Though it had no body of its own, the smaller animal's head was reported to have kept its own personality, remaining as playful as any other puppy, according to Soviet propaganda.

Even the American magazine Time reported the experiment with grudging admiration, describing how the puppy's head alternately growled and snarled with mock ferocity, or licked the hand that caressed it.

"The host-dog was bored by all this but soon became reconciled to the unaccountable puppy that had sprouted out of its neck," their correspondent wrote. "When it got thirsty, the puppy also got thirsty. When the laboratory grew hot, both host-dog and puppy panted to cool off."

After six days, the bizarre hybrid died. But it had survived long enough to worry America, which was desperate to outdo the Soviets in all aspects of science and technology.

Soon the U.S. had a radical transplant programme of its own, led by Robert White, a brilliant and ambitious brain surgeon who, like Demikhov, had seen active service in World War II. In the South Pacific, he had see many men paralysed from the neck down and he was fired with a determination to help these paraplegics live more productive lives. Following Demikhov's triumph with the two-headed dog, the American government helped Dr White establish a brain research centre at the county hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. By day, he performed surgery on people with all kinds of brain injuries and illnesses, but away from his clinics, animals were the focus of his attention.

One key experiment Dr White carried out in 1964 involved removing the brain - though not the head - from one dog and sewing it under the neck skin of another dog.

With its blood vessels connected to those of the host-dog, Dr White managed to keep the isolated brain alive for days, proving not only that the brain could survive away from its own body but that it was immunologically sound - meaning that, unlike a kidney, it could be transplanted without the likelihood of the new 'body' rejecting it.

This was a great breakthrough, but it posed much bigger questions. Did a brain isolated in this way still have the power of thought? Could it in any way be described as 'conscious'?

Since the transplanted brain had no means of expressing itself, Dr White could not answer this question and he seemed to have reached an impasse. But in 1966 he received help from a most unexpected direction.

With Stalin long dead, and the USSR creeping towards economic and technological collaboration with the West, Soviet scientists invited him to visit their laboratories and operating theatres.

During his trip, White learned of new Soviet experiments, in which a severed dog's head had been kept 'alive', not by stitching it onto another dog's body, but using special life-support machinery. Most remarkable of all, the isolated head had continued to show signs of consciousness - its eyes blinking in response to light, and ears pricking at the tap of a hammer on the cases it was in.

This inspired White to take Demikhov's original two-headed dog experiment a stage further: not merely grafting one animal's head on to another's body, but completely replacing one animal's head with another.

This highly complicated operation took White three years to plan and he knew many people would find it morally repugnant. But in the late afternoon of March 14, 1970, he went ahead with the world's first true head transplant, using two rhesus monkeys.

Decapitating both animals, the surgeon successfully managed to stitch the head of one monkey on to the body of the other. He and his team then faced a nervous wait until finally the 'hybrid' monkey regained consciousness, opened its eyes and tried to bite a surgeon who put a finger in its mouth.

The team clapped and cheered as their creation moved its facial muscles, followed their movements with its eyes and even drank from a pipette. But though White regarded the operation as a major success, he knew it had one major limitation.

Because its spinal cord had been severed as part of the operation, the monkey was paralysed from the neck down and it was impossible for the surgeons to reconnect the hundreds of millions of nerve threads necessary for it to regain any bodily movement.

Still, White insisted that such surgery might help a very particular kind of human patient - those paraplegics who faced imminent death because their heads were trapped on bodies failing due to the long-term medical complications which often accompany extensive paralysis.

With a head transplant, these people, he reasoned, would remain paraplegic but their new bodies, 'donated' by patients who were brain dead but otherwise physically healthy, would give them a new chance of life. White never got a chance to pursue this idea. When he went public with the results of his monkey head transplants two years after the event, it earned him only universal condemnation.

Shunned by the scientific establishment and threatened by anti-vivisectionists, he was forced to seek police protection for himself and his family and was denied funding for his work. He went from pioneer to pariah.

Despite the controversy caused by his research, he remains convinced to this day that head transplants for humans may one day be viable. And only now, 35 years after his first experiments on monkeys, does it seem that science may be about to prove him right.

Last year, researchers at University College, London, announced plans to inject the spinal cords of paralysed patients with stem cells taken from the human nose.

These are cells capable of regenerating themselves and adapting to many different purposes within the body and it is hoped they might create a 'bridge' between the disconnected ends of the spinal nerves, enabling paralysed patients to regain full control of their bodies.

If severed spinal cords can be restored in this way, perhaps head transplants might eventually become a scientific possibility - without leaving the unfortunate 'patient' permanently paralysed. Whether such operations would ever be deemed ethical is another matter - and the psychological and emotional implications simply beggar belief.

But we live in an age when French surgeons have already carried out a partial face transplant, and in which British surgeon Dr Peter Butler has been granted permission by the Royal Free Hospital in North London to perform the first complete face transplant in the near future.

Will a full head transplant be the next question for medical ethicists to consider? It's a prospect that raises many disquieting questions, not least whether our souls reside in our minds or in our bodies, and whether a person's head, living on another body, would still be the same person.

One thing's for certain. With surgical techniques improving at such a rapid rate, the issue will shortly be not whether we could carry out a human head transplant, but, much more importantly, whether we should.

---------
• The First Head Transplant: National Geographic Channel, Sunday, January 28, 9pm.

www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles ... _id=426765

More on Demikhov:
forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2670
Link is dead. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/threads/2670


Also of interest:

forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17528
Link is dead. The current link is:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/dr-robert-cornish-he-brought-the-dead-to-life.17528/
 
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Sciency people... what is the verdict on this? The 'Reanimated Russian Dog Head Video'...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=R2BxGOdYm8U

Something is amiss for me in the look of the dog's head when you first see it and the head when it is 'alive'.

The first head, seen at 0:44 looks like something from a taxidermy shop, a model. You see the head and the machine in that shot.

Next shot the head looks like it is a very much alive (0:49), although drowsy, dog - plus the angle has changed so you no longer see the machine behind and that the head has no body.

There is even a camera jerk at 1.25 which could briefly show the dog's body stretched out behind a cardboard partition which is acting as the supposed backdrop- although that is probably just the film jumping legitimately.

Strikes me as a fake video, although whether the actual experiment itself could be pulled off using the mechanical heart/lungs is another matter.
 
If this is a genuine news story, and not some RT parody, it may quite possibly be so Fortean in it's nature as to trump everything, forever. Well, until the next one.

http://metro.co.uk/2015/04/12/world...uld-face-fate-worse-than-death-claim-5146939/

A man who volunteered to have his entire head put on a new body faces a fate worse than death, an expert has warned, while the surgeon set to do it has been described as ‘nuts’.

Valery Spiridonov, who suffers from the debilitating Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, says he is happy to have the experimental surgery carried out despite the risks it carries.

But Dr Hunt Batjer, president elect of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, says it is too risky.
 
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