Content note: animal experimentation/cruelty
(NO REALLY THIS ONE IS KINDA FUCKED UP).
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Which is probably what these scientists had when paved theirs with a frankly upsetting number of disembodied canine heads.
Today’s Moment of Science… bark twice if you’re in a lab in Russia.
Even today, organ transplantation isn’t exactly simple. The hurdles loom high between ‘yoink, gotcher kidney’ and ‘take two immunosuppressants and call me in the morning.’ You only have so much time between acquisition and when the organ or tissue expires. The medications that suppress the immune system to prevent organ rejection can cause complications. And even with those drugs to help your body live happily ever after with your new kidney? Much like with dating, nothing stops rejection entirely.
It’s hard to say if we’ve moved into the “we’re good at this now” phase of our history with organ transplantation. We’re definitely not far removed from the “utter barbarism” phase.
So, Russian zombie doggos.
In the 1930s, Sergei Bryukhonenko did some things in the lab that, when I went to scientist school, would have been termed “spitting in God’s face.” With a primitive heart-lung machine he made called an autoinjektor, he managed to keep a dog’s completely disembodied head “alive” for several hours. The dog was responsive to stimuli. It would lick its gums when a sour tasting substance dabbed on them. A feather on its whiskers made it wiggle its nose. It would flinch at a loud noise.
Holy fuck it’s weird to watch (the videos are on youtube, I’m not linking to any of them, don’t @ me if you get nightmares). There’s no ethical governing body today that would approve of it. Even then the Russians were all “Бля, Сергей, перестань играть с собаками.” (They weren’t happy).
I told you about Bryukhonenko to tell you about Vladimir Demikhov.
Demikhov got his first job at the age of fifteen as a mechanic. It’s been suggested this first job heavily influenced his life as a scientist. He looked at his specimens mechanistically, as parts to be replaced when broken.
This was apparent in his first breakthrough: a mechanical heart for a dog that he made as a twenty-one year old biology undergrad. There was only one real way to find out if it worked. Reportedly, when he performed the transplant, the dog’s blood was kept pumping with Bryukhonenko’s autoinjektor.
The animal only survived a few hours after surgery, but it showed a working concept.
He was conscripted into the Russian military for WWII, working as a pathologist, and survived to go back to his research. He kept on doing experimental transplants in animals, pushing boundaries and doing more complicated surgeries. Liver, heart, lung, and even more complex, combined heart-lung transplants. His experimental work in canines even included performing the first coronary bypass.
Then he went full Dr. Moreau.
The head, upper torso, and forelimbs of a small dog were grafted onto a larger dog’s neck. The arteries and veins of the smaller dog were carefully connected to the larger dog, whose heart and lungs beat for both of them. But not, it seems, the stomach. So when the small dog ate or drank, food was diverted to the ground via a tube. Which is not at all fucking horrifying for all involved.
Decent mechanic, but not much of an ethicist.
It’s unclear how many of these, um, situations he created, but there were at least twenty. Reports vary, but they lived anywhere from a few hours up to a month. His professed reason was to see how damaged organs could be replaced, but I’m not sure how often you need to replace a head that you had sewn onto your neck.
When news of the experiments hit the light of day they were viewed with curiosity but mostly repulsion, both by many of his fellow scientists and the public.
It’s difficult to take a sober look at the history of our medical knowledge, especially the ugly parts that took place relatively recently. Research that went onto save lives was done under the bleakest of ethical circumstances.
Because of these experiments, we have techniques today to keep donor organs healthy before transplantation. We have cardiopulmonary bypass, the modern heart-lung machine. Before Demikhov, doctors were sure that heart and lung transplants were impossible, and he turned it into a scientific reality.
He also turned reality into the stuff of nightmares.
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