Italian medical scientist Sergio Canavero considers head transplants to be the most common practice.
Having published his research in one of the most influential scientific journals in the world, the specialist decided to pose the problem of technical implementation of the "head transplant" not only to the scientific community, but also to the public, authorities and journalists.
Canavero told the popular Italian magazine Oggi about the possibility of "sewing" the head of a living person. The world-renowned scientist, neurosurgeon, who in 2008 managed to return a person literally “from the other world”, designated his area of scientific interests in neurosurgery as “head transplantation from an inanimate person with an intact head box to a living one whose neuromuscular or neuro-muscular system was paralyzed or damaged."
The very possibility of combining two different sections of the spinal cord, and from different organisms, brings medicine to a completely new level, when all fantastic fictions and tales about living water can pass from the realm of miracles into real life, writes Surgical Neurology International about the development of Sergio Canavero.
Giulio Miro, director of the Institute of Neurosurgery at the University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, believes that it will be possible to talk about a head transplant only in a few decades, since the technical side of the issue is practically not studied. But Canavero himself assures that he has almost completed the preparation of a practical basis for his discovery.
The Italian neurosurgeon said that within a couple of years, a human head transplant will become a completely ordinary thing.
“If transplantation is carried out under deep hypothermia (15 ° C), so as not to damage the structure of the brain itself, and if we try to develop a technique for the introduction of substances that promote regeneration after the conditionally called“binding”of nerve endings, then the surgical knife will be subject to what the Heavenly Office usually does. - quoted by Sergio Oggi.
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In Italy, the issue of posthumous transplantation has been discussed for a very long time. Proponents of organ harvesting from the dead have long proven the fundamental importance of such tests for science, but the ethical debate continues to this day.
The fact is that the Catholic Church opposes the dissection of a human corpse - it is believed that after the Second Coming, people will return to their bodies. However, this theory is not supported by the modern Vatican.
Historical reference
In 1954, in the USSR, Dr. Demikhov conducted an experiment that shook the world. The scientist and his assistants took two dogs - an adult and a puppy. The operation went on all night.
In the morning Demikhov demonstrated his achievements. Video footage captured a two-headed monster. The head and front of the puppy's body were sewn to the neck of a large dog. The doctors connected their muscles, blood vessels, nerves and trachea. The biological structure, if you can call the creation of Professor Demikhov, lived for several more days. The heads ate and even tried to bark.
And in 1964, an American neurosurgeon performed a brain transplant. He removed the brain from one dog and transplanted it into the neck of another. The second dog's brain remained intact. White and his assistants connected the blood vessels of the transplanted brain to those of the neck.
The brain “living” in the neck remained under surveillance. Numerous devices monitored blood circulation and metabolism. The brain functioned normally in another dog's body for six days. It was an incredible success!
However, a new problem arose. The electroencephalogram showed that the brain was alive. But does it fulfill its functions?
Meanwhile, the powers that be in the USSR considered Demikhov's work unscientific. The professor was engaged in the development of a new technique for heart surgery, but experiments on transplanting canine heads were discontinued. Some colleagues called Demidov a charlatan, he was deprived of all privileges.
