4 ms·

putting second heart into a dog may look like some transplant experimentation. Butchering and sewing 2 dogs together - nope, it is 1959, it is for the "wow" eff

putting second heart into a dog may look like some transplant experimentation. Butchering and sewing 2 dogs together - nope, it is 1959, it is for the "wow" effect in the show of "the Soviet science under the wise leadership of the Communist Party is the most advanced science in the world". No wonder that they freely let the LIFE journalists in.

acqq 13y ago
I suspect that you have no idea about surgery at all. Based on what do you claim that heart transplants are valid experiments and head transplants aren't? Only because of the shock effect? Try reading about the history of medicine: after Galen (second century common era), mostly thanks to different church/ideological dogmas, "doctors" (quotes because they were quite unsurprisingly unaware of the scientific approach) spent hundreds of years theorizing instead experimenting. Experiments of head transplantations are absolutely valid experiments. More recently and related, USSR had its own ideology-based suppression of valid scientific approach in biology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism
jlgreco 13y ago
Even things that seem like senseless "wow effect" butchering advance the state of science, if by nothing else than by establishing were our limitations are and are not. In this specific case, this work with dogs would later play a role in inspiring Dr. Robert White to attempt the same with monkeys. This larger body of work would then play a role in the development of new surgical techniques for humans, such as the use of therapeutic hypothermia that improves survival rates by dropping body temperatures (something 'played with' during head transplant experiments to keep the brains functional for a longer period of time.)
ubiq 13y ago
I'm pretty sure if they would have used lab rats nobody would complain about the "butchering" so much.

acqq 13y ago

I suspect that you have no idea about surgery at all. Based on what do you claim that heart transplants are valid experiments and head transplants aren't? Only because of the shock effect? Try reading about the history of medicine: after Galen (second century common era), mostly thanks to different church/ideological dogmas, "doctors" (quotes because they were quite unsurprisingly unaware of the scientific approach) spent hundreds of years theorizing instead experimenting. Experiments of head transplantations are absolutely valid experiments. More recently and related, USSR had its own ideology-based suppression of valid scientific approach in biology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism

jlgreco 13y ago

Even things that seem like senseless "wow effect" butchering advance the state of science, if by nothing else than by establishing were our limitations are and are not. In this specific case, this work with dogs would later play a role in inspiring Dr. Robert White to attempt the same with monkeys. This larger body of work would then play a role in the development of new surgical techniques for humans, such as the use of therapeutic hypothermia that improves survival rates by dropping body temperatures (something 'played with' during head transplant experiments to keep the brains functional for a longer period of time.)

ubiq 13y ago

I'm pretty sure if they would have used lab rats nobody would complain about the "butchering" so much.