| Experiments in the Revival of Organisms | |
| Narrator: | J. B. S. Haldane (English) |
| Animator: | Alexander Prozorov |
| Cinematography: | Yekaterina Kashina |
| Runtime: | 19 minutes (Russian) 20 minutes (English) |
| Country: | Soviet Union |
| Language: |
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Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (Russian: О́пыты по оживле́нию органи́зма) is a 1940 documentary film directed by that purports to document Soviet research into the resuscitation of clinically dead organisms. The English version of the film begins with British scientist J. B. S. Haldane giving an introduction.
The operations in the film, as well as the design of the heart-lung machine demonstrated in it, the autojektor, were done by Sergei Brukhonenko, whose work is said to have led to the first operations on heart valves. While the experiments shown are generally considered to have taken place, the legitimacy of the film itself is controversial.
The film depicts and discusses a series of medical experiments. The English version of the film begins with British scientist J. B. S. Haldane appearing and discussing how he has personally seen the procedures carried out in the film at an all-Russian physiological congress.[1] The Russian version lacks this explanation.[2]
The experiments start with a heart of a canine, which is shown being isolated from a body; four tubes are then connected to the organ. Using an apparatus to supply it with blood, the heart beats in the same manner as if it were in a living organism. The film then shows a lung in a tray, which is operated by bellows that oxygenate the blood.[3]
Following the lung scene, the audience is then shown the autojektor, a heart-lung machine, composed of a pair of linear diaphragm pumps, venous and arterial, exchanging oxygen with a water reservoir. It is then seen supplying a dog's head with oxygenated blood. The head is presented with external stimuli, which it responds to. Finally, a dog is brought to clinical death (depicted primarily through an animated diagram of lung and heart activity) by draining the blood from its body, triggering cardiac arrest.
It is then left for ten minutes and connected to the heart-lung machine, which gradually returns the blood into the animal's circulation. After several minutes, the heart fibrillates, then restarts a normal rhythm. Respiration likewise resumes and the machine is disconnected. Over the ensuing ten days, the dog recovers from the procedure and continues living a healthy life.[4] According to the film, several dogs were brought back to life using this method, including one which is an offspring of parents who were both also resuscitated.[5]
In 1925, Sergei Brukhonenko demonstrated the autojektor to the Second Congress of Russian Pathologists in Moscow, where the device kept a dog's head alive for an hour and 40 minutes, while it displayed various reflexes. The next year he presented further research to the Second Congress of Soviet Physiologists in Leningrad.[6]
The film was shot at the Institute of Experimental Physiology and Therapy in Moscow, and was directed by .[7] The operations in the film are credited to Brukhonenko and Boris Levinskovsky. The film was initially produced for Russian audiences using a script written by Brukhonenko.
It was one of three Soviet documentary films that Haldane was requested to supply commentary for in July 1942; the originally proposed English title was Experiments in Bringing the Dead to Life. It is unclear what happened to the other two films.
The film was shown in London towards the end of 1942, and then to an audience of a thousand US scientists the next year in New York, at the Congress of American-Soviet Friendship.[8] [9] The audience considered that the film "might move many supposed biological impossibilities into the realm of the possible".
George Bernard Shaw wrote of Brukhonenko's decapitation experiment: "I am even tempted to have my own head cut off so that I can continue to dictate plays and books without being bothered by illness, without having to dress and undress, without having to eat, without having anything else to do other than to produce masterpieces of dramatic art and literature."[10] The Canadian Medical Association Journal, writing in 1959 in its listing of medical films, described the film as "[w]ell photographed and well arranged" and stated it "[held] interest throughout", though noted it was "[i]nappropriate for the general public".[11] Film historian Alisa Nasrtdinova, writing for the Gosfilmofond, praised the film, saying that the "shocking scenes" were shot with care.[12]
The legitimacy of the film is controversial, with some commentators suggesting it is a recreation of the actual experiments, which were more modest. According to some scientists who claimed to have seen the experiments in the film, the severed dog head only survived for a few minutes when attached to the artificial heart, as opposed to the hours claimed in the film.[13] Another source of skepticism are the dogs drained of blood and then brought back to life, as after 10 minutes of death they should have experienced serious brain damage. According to the institute’s records, the dogs only survived for a few days, not several years as the film claimed.[14]
Brukhonenko developed a new version of the heart-lung machine demonstrated in the film, the autojektor, for use on human patients in the same year; it can be seen today on display at the Museum of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Bakulev Scientific Center of Cardiovascular Surgery in Russia.[15] The autojektor was designed and constructed by Brukhonenko, whose work in the film is said to have led to the first operations on heart valves. It is similar to modern extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machines, as well as the systems commonly used for renal dialysis in modern nephrology.[16] [17] Brukhonenko was posthumously awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize.