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TV programme reveals the REALFrankensteins
by DAVID LEAFE - 22:00pm on 5th January 2007
H
idden deep in a Russian forest, and guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot intruders on sight, themedical research laboratories on the outskirts of Moscow were one of the Soviet Union's best-keptsecrets.So the carefully-vetted journalists who were allowed past the forbidding perimeter fence on a coldFebruary morning in 1954 were both apprehensive and curious about what lay ahead. Led to acourtyard outside an austere brick building, they waited in the bright winter sunshine to find out whythey had been summoned. For a few minutes, only the sound of birdsong and the rustling of leavesfilled 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 hadbeen created by grafting the head and upper body of a small puppy on to the head and body of afully-grown mastiff, to form one grotesque creature with two heads. The visitors watched in horrorand fascination as both of the beast's mouths lapped greedily at a bowl of milk proffered byDemikhov'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 theseemingly impossible - the first ever human head transplant. In pursuing this medical goal, VladimirDemikhov - and his American rival, Robert White - may seem to be the epitome of immoralscientists who ignored all ethical considerations in their pursuit of scientific advance. But in theirown 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 theprogramme warns, the obstacles which held them back from their ultimate goal are fast being erodedby modern science, and we may have to confront the reality of the first human head transplant muchsooner than we care to think.Although the world's first face transplant has already taken place, the notion of taking the head of oneperson 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 mostrespected doctors of the day.A Soviet hero, Vladimir Demikhov was renowned for his work in the Red Army hospitals duringWorld War II. When peace came, he joined an elite team of Russian doctors ordered by Stalin to beatthe West in the field of medicine at any cost. Labouring far from inquisitive eyes in a secret researchcomplex 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 humanbeings. In those days, such a procedure seemed scarcely credible - but Demikhov proved it could bedone. Often preferring to work in the dead of night, he showed that the heart and lungs could betaken from one dog and survive in the chest of another.This laid the groundwork for such landmark operations as the first heart transplant, conducted bySouth 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 histeam set about the intricate task of stitching the upper half of the puppy to the larger animal andconnecting their blood vessels and windpipes.As dawn approached, they waited to see if their creation would regain consciousness. Their first signof 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, thesmaller animal's head was reported to have kept its own personality, remaining as playful as anyother puppy, according to Soviet propaganda.Even the American magazine Time reported the experiment with grudging admiration, describinghow the puppy's head alternately growled and snarled with mock ferocity, or licked the hand thatcaressed it."The host-dog was bored by all this but soon became reconciled to the unaccountable puppy that hadsprouted 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 wasdesperate 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 andambitious brain surgeon who, like Demikhov, had seen active service in World War II. In the SouthPacific, he had see many men paralysed from the neck down and he was fired with a determination tohelp 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 thecounty hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. By day, he performed surgery on people with all kinds of braininjuries 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 isolatedbrain alive for days, proving not only that the brain could survive away from its own body but that itwas immunologically sound - meaning that, unlike a kidney, it could be transplanted without thelikelihood of the new 'body' rejecting it.This was a great breakthrough, but it posed much bigger questions. Did a brain isolated in this waystill 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 thisquestion and he seemed to have reached an impasse. But in 1966 he received help from a mostunexpected direction.With Stalin long dead, and the USSR creeping towards economic and technological collaborationwith the West, Soviet scientists invited him to visit their laboratories and operating theatres.
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