how to keep a severed head alive,....

[meeks]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/11/old-weird-tech-severed-head-life-support-system-edition/66500/

In 1908, Charles Guthrie was able to successfully amputate one dog's head and sew it onto the neck of another dog, rerouting the blood flow so that the animal had two (somewhat) functioning heads, according to Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. "[T]oo much time (twenty minutes had elapsed between the beheading and the moment the circulation was restored for the dog head and brain to regain much function," Roach explained.

To solve that problem, scientists, 77 years later, patented a device for perfusing an animal head. "This invention involves a device, referred to herein as a 'cabinet,' which provides physical and biochemical support for an animal's head which has been 'discorporated' (i.e., severed from its body)," the patent's abstract explains. "This device can be used to support a discorped head with oxygenated blood and nutrients, by means of tubes connected to arteries which pass through the neck. After circulating through the head, the deoxygenated blood returns to the cabinet by means of cannulae which are connected to veins that emerge from the neck."


While scientists have long experimented with detaching and reattaching the heads of rats, dogs and monkeys, it's unclear why the illustrations that accompany the patent (seen above) clearly resemble a human. No human, to date, is known to have to been through the procedure. Technology doesn't yet exist to reattach the spinal cord, which means the patient is left paralyzed from the neck down.

Below is a video from a Russian experiment of a severed dog head being kept alive on a support system similar to the one outlined above. The first minute explains how the system works, the second shows an actual dog's head connected to the cabinet. The experimenter tickles the dog with a feather and rings a loud bell to elicit responses from his subject.


you HAVE to see the video on that page....

[shawnsegler]

I've been saying it for years, but the Micronauts was not just a line of toys for little kids.

It's the hidden secret future history of the universe.

S Karza

[Steve James]

Personally, keeping the head alive without a body would be worse than being a quadriplegic in a wheelchair.

[mrtoes]

I am so not watching that video.

[shawnsegler]

hehe...

+1 fo sho

[cerebus]

I am so not watching that video.

LOL! Me neither man! I'll just hafta take their word for it...

[cgtomash]

[Josealb]

Thats the creepiest thing ive seen in a long while.

[chud]

Shawn, I still have my old issues of the Micronauts comic books. Unfortunately my action figures are long gone though.

Oh and btw, I am not watching that video...no way.

[Ian]

Personally, keeping the head alive without a body would be worse than being a quadriplegic in a wheelchair.

not if you could float and had working genitalia. and a brain the size of a galaxy. then people would worship you like a god.

[RobP2]

[vadaga]

Anybody ever read 'That Hideous Strength' by C.S. Lewis?

[RobP2]

Or remember O Lucky Man... you wonder just what is being kept under wraps in laboratories around the world

[Darthwing Teorist]

I am so not watching that video.

LOL! Me neither man! I'll just hafta take their word for it...

+3

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Anybody ever read 'That Hideous Strength' by C.S. Lewis?

Yes, I've read the whole trilogy in that series.
Great books!

Out of the silent planet, Peralandra(voyage to venus) and that hideous strength were books I read in my early teens. the trilogy spans from 38-45 and touches heavily on the subject of how cold the approach of science can be and how it excludes a lot in the way of human nature as a more mystical force.

I believe you are referring to "The head of the NICE" lol

good one.