In 1954 Vladimir Demikhov shocked the world by showing a monster created surgically, it was a two-headed dog. The scientist created this animal in a lab on Moscow outskirts. He transplanted a head, shoulders and front legs of a puppy on a neck of an adult German shepherd.
Demikhov showed this dog to reporters from all over the world. Both heads breathed, played and simultaneously lapped milk from bowls. The second head always tried to bite the ears of the first one. These unique moments were filmed.
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This operation was planned and realized by Demikhov despite prohibitions of the Health Ministry. Vladimir operated with his collaborator V. Gorianov in a basement of the Institute of Sklifosovsky, because there was no place in the Institute of Surgery for such experiments. The Soviet scientist made his experiments with a bad light, on wooden tables, using an old vacuum cleaner instead of a compressor. But then the whole world spoke about them. There were no appropriate conditions for the dogs care and the Demikhovs took the dogs to their home in a communal flat.
For only fifteen years Demikhov created twenty two-headed dogs. None of them lived for a long time, as they inevitably died because of the tissue rejection. One month was a record period for these dogs.
The scientist explained that these animals were connected by blood vessels, they had a mutual blood circulation. Moreover, a little dog had an ablated heart and lungs, so it lived due to respiration and blood circulation of a big dog. This strange experience was made in order to check whether it was possible to save a sick person by “connecting” him with a blood circulation of another person.
The main purpose of his experiments was to learn to transplant a human heart and lungs. In 1967 this goal was reached by another surgeon, Doctor Christian Barnard, however, many people admitted that Demikhov “paved” the way for the achievement of this goal. Barnard considered Demikhov his master during all his life.
By looking at this dog it’s hard to imagine that it has two hearts. But it is true. Doctor Demikhov listens carefully two hearts beating.
Demikhov walks with a dog named Grishka that had a transplanted second heart .
Demikhov can be considered as the founder of the world transplantology.
And what is your attitude to such experiments? Do you think the science development is worth lives of animals?
via pups
While I can see some use in science for this kind of work, I personally find a little creepy and sad.
Did he also create a dog centipede?
Devil
/discussion
a brilliant scientist yes, but i don’t agree with this.
A. Bunka here. Nice doggy.
It is like having two dogs to pet but only one to scoop up after.
I don’t see the point really. You don’t need to transplant a whole animal, if you’re only trying to learn how to do a heart transplant.
And by transplanting the head only, it’s not like you’re “saving” anything/body by doing so. You end up with half a person, IF you could save them. Or a two headed being. Either option isn’t very good.
The whole head, neck etc, just to transplant a heart? Isn’t a very good thing. If you have to kill a pup to get just the heart, that’s one thing, but this looks like it was more created just to see if it could be done (a two headed thing, like after the movie came out).
Why are those people’s eyes blacked out? Looks like this wasn’t really approved or something.
Perhaps they were looking for a way to keep Stalin alive. They could mount his neck on some poor peasant and he could rule for eternity.
OMGS… sounds like a great idea for a horror movie.
There was a movie from the 50s, called “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die”, where a doctor’s fiancee is decapitated in a car accident, and he spends the rest of the movie looking for strippers to behead and stitch her head to (literally), while she waits at home with her head in a pan, going insane. This movie was used in an episode of MST3K (Mystery Science Theater 3000) about 15-18 years ago.
I believe this is a total fake. It would be 60 years ahead of its time medically, and it would demonstrate spinal cord repair not currently possible.
Except no spinal cord connection was involved, all they did was connect the arteries to the larger dog’s heart, and you don’t need a spinal cord for basic facial articulation (all the nerves for the head are in the head), going from your logic, Christopher Reeves shouldn’t have been able to talk either, despite his spine being severed from the nexck down.
An obvious narcissist/sociopath. One didn’t need to experiment this way. He’s in the same league with Dr. Walter Freeman.
wtf? are you serious? the guy was a complete sadist! i can’t beleive he didn’t end up in jail for this! and i can’t believe you’re seriously asking such a question.what is wrong with you??
He was an angel, only Nazis are evil.
And yet more devolution…
I’m not quite sure it tissue rejection was a known issue a that time. FYI a long time ago it was forbidden to dissect a human corpse (even if one wanted to learn its functioning).
It may seem strange and shocking, but this is medical environment, they see living things as robots and experiment on them (ever seen lab rats?), anybody with any experience in medical field can tell you how dehumanizing you become after a while.
Look up what crazy experiments Werner Forssmann and Leonid Rogozov did on themselves.
Sounds like moral relevatism
However it may be justified, that man was a mad sadist. Russian history is full of cruel experimenters and Russians are proud of such people. It makes one wonder what they are really like today.
The wikipedia article for Agent Orange also has an informative photograph showing a dead multiheaded human baby. Have fun!
Justify bad behavior with other bad behavior? Interesting way to prove a point.
Like John Carpenter’s (excellent) sci-fi movie The Thing.
the scientist is a devil
The americans did the very same thing, check this wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_transplant
Yup. American was Robert White out of Cleveland Clinic. Guy in video is known by all good neurosurgeons. The interest was NOT heart translate, rather brain translate. This is the holy grail for neurosurgery. This is actually really incredible work–not only did the head survive (acute tissue rejection issues), transplanted head was neurologically intact, despite a severed, severely traumatized spinal cord. Speaks to importance of cerebrovascular. Overall amazing and one day this may benefit humanity tremendously. But poor dogs
May they RIP. Their (involuntary) sacrifice will never be forgotten.
The dogs died, and because of that, if YOUR heart fails today, you can get a replacement by surgery and stay alive.
You can’t gain something without paying something also. If you have a way to do it without killing animals, fine, problem solved. But if the only way to learn is killing animals, then the greater good (the benefit to mankind) can account that.
Anyway, it’s way better than using people for experiments.
I agree with your sentiment. However, in this case it looks more like ego. Plus how twisted do you have to be to think this one up?
No, actually it isn’t better.
No matter what your attitude is about this, these experiments made a way for first hearth transplantation in Australia. Although these experiments are horrible!
WOW! I never knew they had Photoshop way back then
Born of the hellhound…
Well, that was actually undoubtly a milestone in the medical history.
Yes, similar experiments was going on in the US (at least what i hawe herad of).
_
A window into a culture is how they treat their women, their kids, and their pets.
And look how well America treats theirs… Just sayin’.
This kind of experiments are actually very beneficial to the humanity, even if it’s cruel. I believe that if today scientists could do more experiments like this, or even experiment on death-sentenced or very ill people, we could be able successfully transplant human head or even greater things – save many more human lives, than animals were saved by various animal protection organizations.
While we kill animals all the time for lesser reasons, the reason these experiments are bad is that they desensitize us to cruelty. They hurt humans by making us “care” less than we would.
Were they real or fake? I don’t have the expertise to tell.
And I shall name you… Cerberus !
And what’s the use? I mean seriously? To see how long it’d live? I don’t mind animal testing as long as it serves a purpose, but I don’t see what adding two heads to a dog proves.
It was an experiment in viable transplantation, as well as to see if it was possible to extend someone’s life “between bodies”. That was the original purpose of the experiments.
Say you were a great benefit to humanity, and you were dying. Meanwhile, an axe murderer was about to be executed. If they could (eventually) figure out how to connect whole spinal cords, wouldn’t you deserve a new body to continue your works?
In the meanwhile, barring that, if you could have a temporary blood supply added while waiting for an organ transplant, considering how iffy artificial organs still are, having a temporary shared artery flow still beats what most mechanical solutions cannot provide.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1467304/ Human Centipede A mad scientist kidnaps and mutilates a trio of tourists in order to reassemble them into a new “pet”– a human centipede, created by stitching their mouths to each others’ rectums.
es un reverendo hijo de mil putas, malnacido concha de su madre
One can only hope this is a fake. If not, those surgeons should have been taken out and shot. Makes me sick to watch it.
When man re-creates what God has made perfect, the outcome is usually bad. Not always, but here, a monster, a sad monster to pity.
awwww how cute!
Reminds me of the novel Heart of a Dog by Bulgakov we had to read for our Russian History course today
sobie by przeszczepili głowe od psa, to może by nie wpadali na takie pomysły
So what?… This is old news, and open news. American black budget programs are far worse. When was last time America was open about anything?! Never. Ever ask yourself the question where those billions goes every year, and you would have have to be living in a fantasy land to not know that animal experiments are carried out daily around the world worse than this. This video was made to help Humankind. Imagine if doctors could transplanted Christopher Reeve’s head to a body. No argument then. Silly people.
Mein lieber dreihund…
Evil monster!
But who is the genius scientist who gave Vladimir Demikhov the brains of an amoeba?
it is very sad to do experiment on poor dogs