Those words are the most familiar words in Science Fiction history. The picture begins to sparkle as the monster is brought to life.
Mary Shelly's Frankenstein is known as the first science fiction story ever written. It is the story of a man who tries to play God and fumbles with the most precious and dear thing nature has created--life.
This may just be a story, but there are many scientists out there who are not unlike Dr. Frankenstein here. In fact Mary Shelly based the character on a real man named Johann Konrad Dippel who shared many characteristics with Victor. However, the most profound "Frankenstein" case to date took place somewhere in Soviet Union during the midst of the Cold War under the reign of Stalin.
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. There is where Vladimir Demikhov did his work beyond the sight of inquisitive eyes. A Soviet hero, renowned for his work in the Red Army hospitals during World War II, Vladimir is now part of an elite team of Russian doctors ordered by Stalin to beat the West in the field of medicine at any cost. In the secret facilities, Vladimir was free to experiment on life and ways to prolong it. Stalin and his scientists had many crazy ideas(one involving the creation of a man-ape soldier). Scientists like Vladimir were prepared to go where many at the day never dared thinking. Their greatest project was the head transplantation of live animals!
People thought it was impossible. But Vladimir had already proved many things. Only he was crazy enough at the time to believed that organ transplantation was possible, and he proved it! He showed that most organs could be transplanted and still function in its new body. But how about the brain? Though it seemed incredible at the time to most, head transplantation became a branch of science pursued by some of the most respected doctors of the day.
On February 1954, journalists were allowed to take a look at these secret projects and the Soviet Union revealed a truly bizarre creation, a strange grotesque animal. Out from the laboratory came a live two-headed dog! The unfortunate creature was created by removing the head and upper body of a small puppy on to the head and body of a fully-grown mastiff. Both heads could move and eat and drink and have personality. It was an intricate task performed by the team of scientists and surgeons on an early February morning. It involved stitching the upper half of the
puppy to the larger animal and connecting vital things like their blood vessels and windpipes. As dawn approached, just as Victor Frankenstein had done, the team anxiously waited to see whether their creation would gain consciousness. They knew it was a success when the puppy head woke up and yawned, followed by the larger head which was quite puzzled by the strange thing on his shoulder. Whether the scientists hysterically shouted the words "It's alive!" I do not know, but they sure were excited to show the US their scientific triumph.The world was shocked and amazed by what they had done. Even many US newspapers showed grudging admiration. This got to US to start a radical transplant programme of its own, led by Robert White a brain surgeon, also a WWII veteran like Vladimir. He had see many men paralysed from the neck down and he was determined to help these paraplegics live more productive lives. The government helped Dr White establish a brain research centre at the county hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. By day, he performed surgery on people with various brain injuries and illnesses, but away from his clinics, it was animals that were the focus of his attention.
Much like what Vladimir sought to accomplish, in 1964 Dr. White took the brain(not the entire head) from one dog and sewed 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. In that he proved not only that the brain could survive away from its own body but that it was immunologically sound, which meant that unlike a kidney, it could be transplanted without the likelihood of the new body 'rejecting' it. This posed bigger questions. Did a brain isolated in this way still have the power of thought? Could it be described as conscious? There was know way a brain like this could express itself.
In 1966 Dr. White received help from a most unexpected source. With Stalin long dead, and the Cold War starting to ease, Soviet scientists invited Dr. White to their operating facilities. There he found out about other experiments such as the severed head of a dog being kept alive by machines. What was remarkable was that the isolated head had continued to show signs of consciousness in that its eyes blinked in response to light, and ears pricked at the tap of a hammer on the cases it was in. Dr. White became inspired to take the Soviet projects even further--he wanted to completely replace the head of an animal!
It took 3 years to plan this highly complicated operation despite knowing that it would be appear morally repulsive to the public eye. In the late afternoon of March 14, 1970 the first true head transplant got underway using two rhesus monkeys.The surgeon successfully managed decapitate both heads and stitch the head of one monkey on to the body of the other. It was another Frankenstein moment when the team nervously waited. Then the monkey regained
consciousness, opened its eyes and tried to bite a surgeon who put a finger in its mouth. The operation as a major success, but 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 hoped this could help paraplegics who were nearing death because or the constant paralyzed state of their bodies. The new bodies could be donated by those who were brain-dead but had healthy bodies. Dr. White thought he would get some praise for his efforts in medical science. All he got was widespread angry condemnation. Shunned by the scientific establishment and threatened by anti-vivisectionists, he and his family needed police protection and his project went to ruin.However, his dreams of perfecting the transplant seems very possible. 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. This could create a 'bridge' between the disconnected ends of the spinal nerves, enabling patients to regain full control of their bodies. It has been more than 40 year. As science continues to advance exponentially. The only things stopping anything from happening are the morals of man-kind and the will of the people and politicians.
Those morals are rapidly eroding away, and science is moving forward faster than ever thought possible. Nothing is impossible. We live in an age where just recently clinically dead dogs were brought to life and French scientists performed a successful face transplant. It truly is no longer a concern of can we do it, but rather should we do it?
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.
If anyone is interested, I hear that the new X Files movie deals with a similar issue discussed here. Check it out.
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