Deep sleep runs the risk of becoming a remedy for all occasions in the very near future. Anabiosis will be widely used in medicine, astronautics and even in everyday life. Thus, Australian pharmacists have invented a drug that allows the seriously wounded to be put to sleep right on the battlefield. Meanwhile, NASA is hatching the idea of suspended animation for astronauts.
For most people, sleep is just synonymous with good rest. But it turns out that this pleasantly relaxed state can be used not only for recuperation after a hard day. True, in the cases described below, we are no longer talking about a completely ordinary dream, but rather a "medical coma".
In essence, a coma is also a dream, only, as a rule, pathological. When consciousness is switched off due to some serious illness.
For example, in case of massive craniocerebral trauma, inflammation of the brain (encephalitis), poisoning of the body with poisons in case of liver or kidney failure, etc. Doctors do not always manage to get a person out of such a coma …
But, say, there are cases when the same doctors, on the contrary, try to put the patient to sleep for as long as possible. With the same head injuries - or strokes, for example.
The fact is that during sleep, the need of brain cells for oxygen and nutrients is reduced by at least half. And this is exactly what is required in situations when this very blood supply, to put it mildly, is lame.
When it is possible to restore it, then the patient will be allowed to wake up. And before - no, no - otherwise the damage to parts of the brain will become irreversible.
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In practice, although rare, cases of deep sleep cure even from rabies have been recorded. It is well known that when this disease manifests itself in a person, he is, in fact, doomed. After all, the virus has already entered the brain and began its destructive work.
But it turns out that in a state of artificial coma, such a patient can be vaccinated - and the immunity that destroys the rabies virus will have time to form before the virus itself kills the patient.
And, for example, the other day there was a message that the American special forces became interested in an Australian drug that makes it possible to euthanize the seriously wounded right on the battlefield. They plunge into a kind of "lethargic sleep" - with a slow heartbeat, blood circulation - and, again, reduced oxygen consumption by brain cells.
As a result, most of the factors of wound shock - bleeding with blood loss, damage to internal organs (and especially the brain) due to oxygen starvation are largely leveled out.
Not for very long - but the "therapeutic window" during which medical care for such wounded is effective is only 10 minutes. And under the whistle of bullets and explosions of shells right on the battlefield, it is difficult to provide it.
As a result, up to a quarter of all seriously wounded who could have been rescued in a normal hospital die without waiting for evacuation. But after the introduction of the "sleeping medicine" this critical period is extended to an hour, during which it is quite possible for a soldier to be evacuated by helicopter to a hospital.
It is worth noting that many "military medicines" sooner or later become the property of civil medicine. As, for example, the highly effective antiemetic agent "metoclopramide", originally invented for military personal first aid kits.
So that the soldiers exposed to radiation after the use of nuclear weapons can maintain their working capacity, and not become a victim of nausea, the inevitable companion of acute radiation sickness. Nowadays, this drug is used quite often in almost all medical specialties.
So the drug invented by the Australians will probably be in demand by the same ambulance in order to manage to deliver to hospitals, say, victims of serious accidents, explosions of household gas, etc.
But do not think that sleep is used exclusively in medicine. So, now American scientists from NASA, developing a scenario of a man's flight to Mars, are inclined to the option when the astronauts will be in a state of almost "suspended animation" for most of the many months of flight - familiar from science fiction novels.
In this case, the astronaut is "between life and death", his life processes are slowed down to a minimum. This, in turn, will make it possible to halve the necessary supplies of food and oxygen for the flight - and this, among other things, will save tens of billions of dollars on the "take-off weight" of the spacecraft.
The details of this "suspended animation", of course, are still secret know-how. But in general terms - it will be "hypothermia" (decrease in body temperature) and the use of special types of sleeping pills. Perhaps, similar in chemical composition to those substances that are produced in the body of animals falling into hibernation.
In general, if you allow yourself to fantasize a little, "suspended animation", again, could be useful not only for the "heroes of star trails" to the planets of the solar system or even to the stars.
Take the most ordinary social life with its economic crises? When from time to time some people find themselves almost overboard - losing their jobs and livelihoods. Perhaps the possibility of “hibernating” until the situation improves would not be the worst way out for some?
But so far the last thesis is pure fantasy. However, this does not negate the main conclusion: modern science is increasingly using sleep in the most unusual moments. And so far, these innovations, unlike many others, are used exclusively for humane purposes - which can only be rejoiced at.
