Russian Dog Experiment - A Living Decapitated Dog

Story:

Russian Dog Experiment – Living without a body!

Russian scientists detach a dogs head for the purpose of testing and research artificial life support in pre-soviet republic. The dog is awakened in this video after having it’s head surgically severed and is experimented on to determine if the animal is lucid, and to document the technology in this film reel.

Analysis:

A video circulating online claims to show a Russian experiment where a decapitated Dog is shown to live as well as respond to various stimuli. It is a fact, the video is a part of a documentary, where Russian scientists test and research artificial life support in pre-soviet republic.

Experiment & Documentary

The footage is taken from the ‘Experiments in the Revival of Organisms,’ a 1940 motion picture that documented the Soviet research into the resuscitation of clinically dead organisms. The film, shown in video below, was sponsored by Soviet Film Agency, and explained the successful experiments in the resuscitation of life to dead animals (dogs) by a group of Russian scientists under Dr. Serge Bryukhonenko at the U.S.S.R. Institute of Experimental Physiology and Therapy at Moscow.

Firstly, blood is introduced into the cardiac vessels of an isolated dog’s heart through tubes and is shown to function like it did previously in the living animal. Then isolated lungs in a tray are shown to breathe, when operated by bellows, oxygenating blood. The following scene describes the operation of a primitive heart-lung machine, the autojektor (or autojector), which is composed of a pair of diaphragm linear pumps and an oxygen bubble chamber. It is explained that the artificial blood circulation ensures the metabolism necessary for the life of the decapitated dog head, which is shown to respond to external stimuli; but the film does not show the arterial and venous connections to the dog’s head.

Picture of Russian Dog Experiment - A Living Decapitated Dog — Russian Dog Experiment – A Living Decapitated Dog

Finally, another dog is brought to clinical death by draining all its blood, it is left for ten minutes, and is then connected to the heart-lung machine (autojector) — pumping the removed blood externally. After several minutes, the heart and then the respiration of the (clinically dead) dog are shown to resume. Later, the machine is removed and the dog is shown to continue living a healthy life after few days. Couple of other dogs with similar experiments were also mentioned in the documentary video.

Reaction

These Russian decapitation experiments and the film on revival of animals provoked much controversy at that time. However, Bryukhonenko developed a new version of the autojektor (for use on humans) later, and his research was vital to the development of open-heart procedures in Russia. For his research in Physiology, Bryukhonenko was posthumously awarded the prestigious Lenin Prize.