Movies - Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

	Movies - Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms is a 1940 Soviet motion picture which documents Soviet research into the reanimation of the dead. The British scientist J. B. S. Haldane appears in the film's introduction. It is available from Prelinger's Archives, where it is in the public domain.

The film discusses and depicts a (canine, as with all in this film) heart beating outside a body, simply with four tubes connected. It is unknown how cardiac arteries are serviced.

It then shows a lung in a tray, operated by bellows, oxygenating blood. How this proceeds when bellows are a closed system (thus would rapidly lose all contained oxygen) is again unknown.

Following the lung scene we are shown the operation of a primitive heart-lung machine, comprising of a pair of diaphragm linear pumps and what appears to be an oxygen bubble chamber, then are told it is supplying a canine head with oxygenated blood. The head is shown to respond to external stimuli, but the film does not show the arterial and venal connections to the head.

Finally, we are treated to a dog being killed (mostly via a graphical plot of lung and heart activity), left for ten minutes, then being connected to the heart-lung machine described earlier. After several minutes, the heart fibrillates, then restarts a normal rhythm. Respiration likewise resumes, the machine is removed and the dog is shown to continue living a healthy life.

Modern medical authorities reject this film outright for many of the above noted inconsistencies.

1. A heart requires a 'pacemaker', in the form of nerves from the brain. It will not last for any length of time severed from this link. The heart also will not restart spontaneously just because oxygenated blood is flowing. Cardiac muscle scars very easily when oxygen is limited, thus the high incidence of heart attacks in humans.

2. Irreversible brain death takes mere minutes to occur at room temperature. Even accounting for the relative simplicity of a canine brain, it is not likely that revival would be possible after ten minutes of clinical death without severe negative effects to the animal's Central Nervous System

3. The heart-lung machine described would not operate at anywhere near the capacity required for a large organism, such as the example dog. The 'lung' was far too small and could not have sustained a useful oxygenation rate. The two pumps replacing the heart were also inadequate for the task. A modern heart-lung machine is much larger for these reasons.

It is not likely that this film represents serious scientific research, more it would be Soviet propaganda. Perhaps the Soviets did research in this area but technology (and understanding) was not adequate for the research to be successful.

All these points aside, however, the film does do a reasonable job at describing how a basic heart-lung machine would function.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Experiments in the Revival of Organisms ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Experiments in the Revival of Organisms; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay