A WONDER OF SURGERY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 442, 26 November 1908, Page 3

A WONDER OF SURGERY.

Dr Adolf Posner, of Berlin University, some mouths ago startled the scientific world by stating that surgery had advanced to a point which made it possible to transfer the head of one human being to the neck of another. Many men of science agreed that the operation was theoretically possible, but pointed out that nobody had succeeded in performing it on any of the higher animals. Until such time as a vivisectionist should succeed in grafting a living head on a living body without killling the grafted animal, science could not consider the operation seriously. Now comes the statement by an American doctor that he took the head of one dog and joined it to the neck of another. The body with the strange head lived fort twenty-six minutes. During tha time it was demonstrated that the new head had come into communication with the body.

The heart pumped blood through the joined arteries in the neck, and nourished the head and brain. These in sent nervous impulses to the organs of the body, and maintained its functions for twenty-six minutes.

The fact that the composite dog lived was wonderful enough, and removed the scientific objections to Dr Posner’s statements; but the dog did more than- live during those twenty-six minutes. The creature was conscious during nearly the whole period, and proved it unmistakably. Many of the most startling achievements of surgery are carefully guarded secrets. Operations ou human subjects are sometimes known only to the medical fraternity out of respect to the patient’s wishes. A man may not wish it generally known that he looks upon the world with the eye of a rabbit.