everything that's been discovered about
this universe everything that exists
only because of the human brain how we
obviously didn't create the universe
while we discovered it so the brain has
become I think the center of the human
anatomical universe and that when it's
with us you're alive and when it's not
you're not I think there are
overwhelming ethical problems not benign
at all but to realize that an operation
has been created to transplant the human
thinking process and some believe the
spiritual
we now have separated the head from the
body which has been removed and this
would probably keep somebody alive for a
number of years after they would have
died I was probably a sophomore or maybe
a junior in high school in Minneapolis
one of the things that was required in
the biology laboratory was that you had
to detect a frog the day's work required
the student to remove the top or surface
of the skull and display the brain
- his little damage to it as possible
was all done this red-haired Catholic
brother painted my desk
I bet Rifai and he looked at it and he
said white I've never seen a dissection
as good as yours I thought it was
kidding and he was going to give me a
class behind the ear and he said you
know you ought to be a brain surgeon
well I became very fascinated with
neurosurgery so off I went and it was a
great experience
welcome to my little abode as you can
see it it seems to be filled with papers
books and photographs it's where I love
to retire to in afternoons and he means
now here these two portraits that are up
here may be of interest
this is Harvey Cushing who was born in
Cleveland died in Cleveland who began a
field in neurosurgery
this is Nagurski who was a Russian
pioneer in resuscitation and reanimation
how many times did you operate on can I
operate out of the brain well I think
about 10,000 I got to know it very well
now here is a half section of the brain
this model is one of the best in the
world I mean your brain looks like this
these are complicated areas and whether
you like it or not that's you do you say
you figured you'd be prettier than that
well kind of sad is that to think that
you spend your life operating on
something is goofy looking is that
and so you do most of your writing in
here no actually I should I took that
McDonald yeah well see one of the
reasons is this place is so close to the
bedroom and the pantry and everything
else it's very difficult to today
distractions yeah if I'm going to drive
all the way from here and then drive all
the way back and work at McDonald's I
better get something done
let's see I was graduated and about 53 I
think so I went to work at the Peter
bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and as
part of Harvard so what I had entered
was a general surgery residency so here
was an appendectomy
there was a surgeon who was a senior
resident a junior resident like me in
the meantime I'd had a chance now to
settle back and look at this student
nurse that was helping me it was an
absolute knockout all of a sudden the
Chief of Surgery famous famous surgeon
looked in the door and he said to the
chief surgeon I need you and he said
well that leaves well that leaves you
white he said well if you have any
trouble removing this appendix just
holler and I'll come back and help you I
did the operation I met my wife the very
young woman there on the couch is my
wife Patricia and on her right is my
daughter Pamela and still on the couch
on my wife's left is Marguerite and
Richard and continuing along my oldest
son Robert and my son Christopher and
then coming back here the boy with the
lovely hair is my son Michael and
standing next to Michael in the blue
shirt is my son Jimmy and directly to
his right is my son Daniel and this is
my youngest daughter Ruth and this is my
oldest daughter Patricia I'm exhausted
it was also the time because I was there
for from 53 to 55 but the first
successful kidney transplant was done at
the Brigham for which the Nobel Prize
was given now I didn't have anything to
do with that but yes it was a very
exciting time because they were thinking
about liver transplants they were
thinking about the heart-lung I mean
they were they were really into it well
first of all my thesis for my PhD was
was indeed a total hemispherectomy in
the dog for half the brain half the
brain was simply removed and then the
animal was very carefully treated to CAF
would survive and be what would be the
neurological deficit now at that time
and even today they were already
removing half a brain for two things one
of them was for epilepsy and the other
was for tumor some highly malignant
brain tumors are subjected to total
removal and removal of that side of the
brain and which the tumor isn't better
yeah
here's your brain tumor it's a malignant
tumor of brain I'm cutting across the
tumor so you can see it's solid inside
totally abnormal there's nothing here to
resemble brain tissue in any way the
ones down on humans were often very less
than that they were really of a movie
mostly the cortex I am feeling today not
too good a what is it the food or what
mm-hmm
you put your arm up for as mrs. Pollino
all right good how about the other one
but nobody knew how far to go I mean
after all you got a step somewhere so I
designed this it was approved at the
Mayo Clinic and at the University of
Minnesota and I had to operate on these
animals gotta take care of him they did
have animal technicians there well we
found out that this paralysis and so
forth that would occur and these animals
would clear up amazingly and that for
people who were not aware of which side
the animals operated on but now tell you
which side of the brain was that removed
the operations are done in a laboratory
that setup just like an operating room
in a hospital the reason for that is
that we have to have the the same sort
of talents the same skills to do the
surgery and manage the anesthesia in
these animals to keep them alive and
properly pain-free as we would with even
children when they're operated on
we principally use monkeys because their
nervous systems are very similar to man
there are many people who have great
sensitivities about the use of animals
in medical research and I can only
remind you I'm not trying to influence
you but I'm using your question as a
basis that the wonderful advances that
we all enjoy in the field of
transplantation surgery and medicine are
a direct result of centuries of
experimental work with animals
No
give me a diet coke and yeah
decaffeinated coffee well one of the
things that bothered me when I was at
the mails was I had reached the point
where very often the emergencies
particularly the traumas I am very
disappointed on the results I've been
with a lot of families when members of
their family were dying and I could not
save you individuals with spinal cord
injury for example didn't seem to get
better no matter how I operated I never
how soon I operated on and that's the
problem the brain of a human cannot be
without a blood supply beyond three to
five minutes at normal temperature the
brain is extremely sensitive to the
circulation and without it if somebody
dies much faster and then any other
organ in the body
don't forget our heart our very life
depends on the proper working of this
amazing little instrument our heart is
actually a little muscular pump forcing
blood through thousands of miles of
blood vessels but it carries food and
oxygen to every part of our body and of
course there's our brain which in itself
is almost beyond our ability to
understand I guess I run to a lot of
trouble just to make our body so perfect
in other words you've got to find some
way to alter the demands of the brain
and the easiest and most scientific way
of doing that is to reduce the
temperature of the brain and I thought
to myself look I already got this wound
in the back of this person's body to
decompress this
I'm Cory why don't I just hook this up
to a ice bath and a pump and simply
circulate the ice water in and out of
this cavity so I went to work working
out the limits how cold could I get the
brain how long can I keep it cool
what sort of technique what I develop in
order to do that so I had done a lot of
studying I had done experiments on brain
tissue and it's responsive 'ti to low
temperature I just felt that this was
really the method or the system to treat
injuries nervous tissue we worked out of
force which would render the animal
totally paralyzed if it wasn't cool
obviously they were receiving the best
anesthesia that can be provided a child
we found that if we cou leave animals
soon enough
within four hours they could become good
enough to be run around the cages again
it's what we found I think better than
anybody else that if you could get the
brain temperature down let's say 214
degrees they wide you could close that
artery off only for three to five
minutes you can now close it off for
probably a couple couple of hours
you