Can We Raise The Dead ?! - PART 1

Scientists have been attempting to restore life to the dead for hundreds of years. The boundary between life and death is usually due to heart failure, cessation of breathing and brain death. In this scenario a person who has deceased become motionless and lifeless, as the heart stops beating- blood flow is shut down. Leading to oxygen supply being switched off for all bodily organs. Thus, breathing and brain activity is shut down. Revivification science is considered a taboo, but it has practical benefits such as reviving the drowned, shocked and asphyxiated.

Different methods throughout history

In the 1700s, numerous cities in Europe took an interest in reviving drowned people. These methods would have been concerning for present-day use such as- throwing the person who is no longer breathing onto a trotting horse or dunking in freezing water, tickling with a feather at the back of the throat, blowing tobacco smoke into the rectum or whipping. But these methods are with proper scientific backing. For instance, the trotting of the horse up and down could help in moving the diaphragm and chest walls in and out enough to force in and out of the lungs to simulate some circulation- unlike CPR. Now, tobacco smoke consists of nicotine which aids in triggering the brain to release epinephrine that increases the strength and rate of hearts contractions. These methods are indeed bizarre but are ancestors to techniques we use presently.

Physicist Giovanni Aldini, (nephew of Luigi Galvani) was the greatest supporter of Galvani’s works. Luigi Galvani’s discovery of accidental application of current on a severed frog’s leg, which created twitches or muscle spasms like severe cramp setting in.

In the 1800s, Aldini became famous for “reanimating” human and animal corpses by inducing them with intense electric shocks. He demonstrated this by using dismembered human or animals and hooking them to a battery- the corpses would convulse as if it were alive. He travelled all over Europe electrifying human and animal bodies publicly and performed speculator theoretical performances. As a showman in many ways, he was one of the first to treat mentally ill patients with applying shocks to the brain and reporting complete cures for certain mental illness. Aldini knew applying electric shocks was not reviving the dead but considered it a possibility like the scientists who followed him.

Dead — *A Galvanized corpse.* Published in 1836, this cartoon depicts Galvani’s nephew electrifying a criminal’s corpse.

By 1930s the attempts to reanimate using electricity died out but the fascination continued. A noteworthy scientist in the field of reanimation is Robert E. Cornish, a prodigy who graduated with honours from the University of California, Berkeley at the age of 18 and received a doctorate by 22. Cornish in 1932 became interested in the concept of restoring life to the dead and the cornerstone of his plan entailed a teeterboard (see-saw), a mixture of epinephrine (adrenaline) and anticoagulants (blood thinner). The teeterboard was used to get the blood flowing in recently deceased patients and the mixture was used to inject into their circulatory system. It’s also noteworthy that during that time CPR wasn’t even established until the 1960s.

In 1933, Cornish tried to revive victims of heart attack, drowning and electrocution with the teeterboard but remained unsuccessful. He then chose to perfect his methods on animals and successfully managed to revive two dogs (Lazarus IV and V, named after the mythical figure- brought back to life by Jesus). The first three dogs resurrected showed little signs of life and the best result was Lazarus II who remained in a coma for eight hours before passing again. Meanwhile, Lazarus IV came back to life but was blind and brain-damaged. He reported she recovered in a matter of months to full strength and Lazarus V had the same results but regained normality in a shorter period. The results are words reported by Doctor Cornish and not confirmed by anyone else.

The public found the concept of zombifying (killing) Fox terriers repulsive. Cornish was expelled from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and continued to conduct his studies in his home with pigs instead of dogs. He wanted to win over the public to prove his research was vital. This golden opportunity came in the form of Life Returns by universal, a horror movie. It revolved around Cornish and his research. In the movie, Robert Cornish portrays himself and depicts the actual footage of the Lazarus experiment.

After the success of the experiments on dogs, he wanted to test on a human patient. He explored the jails and came across Thomas McMonigle. But his request was denied by the government on humane grounds and to avoid “double jeopardy”.

Robert Cornish was the initial start of the revivification experiments and in the case of Cornish’s experiment, the window of revival was 5 minutes. But by 2003, scientists from Pittsburg could revive dogs within 2 hours. The researchers firstly bled their animals subjects to death and pumped a near-freezing saline solution onto the dog’s veins. This chilled their organs to prevent lasting damage meaning it was stored in a state of suspended animation. Lastly, the saline solution was substituted with original blood and carefully defibrillated their hearts into existence with timely electric shocks. The tested dogs of 27, 24 survived.

In 2011, Kelly Dwyer an environmental educator set out to hike a beaver pond trail. David, Kelly’s husband was worried after her failure to return after sunset and went searching for her. As he neared the lake, he called out her name and heard groans in response. David ran towards the sounds and phoned their daughter to call 911. He soon spotted Kelly submerged up to her neck in an icy dark water hole and clutched her to keep her head above water.

Kelly has already slipped into unconsciousness and her body temperature rose to 60˚F ( 15˚C) along with her pulse almost faint to register by the time the rescue team arrived. Her heart stopped before she could even reach the ambulance and the EMTs continued to apply CPR which the doctors have been doing for the three hours in the hospital. They tried to restart her heart by warming her body and even defibrillating. Her core temperature was now around the 70˚F (21˚C) and David thought it was all over. But all hope was not lost, a doctor rushed her to a nearby hospital and attached her to a cardiac bypass machine. This helped her warm, filter and oxygenate her blood enabling it to rapidly circulate through Kelly’s body. Slowly, her temperature came up and after five hours of being medically dead. The doctors switched off the bypass machine and Kelly’s heart began beating again.

To be continued….