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"We're about 20 minutes away from the point where Clarke's law kicks in and technology becomes indistinguishable from magic."
- Peter Watts
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| Human Head Transplant | ||
| Putting a human head on a new body, surgically. |
| Briquet’s head seemed to think that to find and attach a new body to her head was as easy as to fit and sew a new dress. The neck circumference had been measured, and all that remained was to find a corpse with the same neck size.
However, she soon discovered that it wasn’t that simple. Professor Kern, Laurant and John came to see her in the morning, dressed in white coats. Kern directed his assistants to carefully take Briquet’s head off the glass table and place it facing up to be able to see the entire section of the neck. The head continued to be fed with oxygen-saturated blood through the entire process. Kern focused on studying its anatomy and making critical measurements. “While human anatomy is generally very uniform,” Kern said, “every human body has its own peculiarities. Sometimes it is difficult to tell, for example, the exact position of the carotid artery. The thickness of the arteries is not always the same either, nor is the size of the windpipe, even for people with the same neck circumference. There is also much work to be done with the nerves.” “But then how are you going to operate?” Laurant asked. “Once you place the neck against the body, you shall cover up your entire working surface.” “Therein lies the problem. Dowell and I have been working on this issue. We shall have to make a series of lengthwise cuts – going from the center to the outside. It is a very complex work. We shall have to make fresh cuts in the neck’s head and in the neck of the corpse to get to the active living cells. But that is not the main complication. The main thing is to eliminate the products of decay or infection in the body, to clear the blood vessels from the coagulated blood, to fill them with fresh blood and to force the body’s ‘engine’ – the heart to work again. And what about the spinal cord? The merest touch to it causes the most violent reaction, sometimes with very serious consequences.” “How do you plan to overcome these problems?” “Oh, it is my secret for now. Once the experiment is successful, I shall publish the entire sequence of bringing someone back to life. Well, that’s enough for today. Put the head back into place. Open the air valve. How do you feel, Mademoiselle?” Kern asked, addressing Briquet’s head. |
| Technovelgy from Professor Dowell's Head,
by Alexander Belaev. Published by Rabochaya Gazeta in 1925 Additional resources -
|
Compare to head preserved in a metal body from The Comet Doom (1929) by Edmond Hamilton and preserved brains from Murder in the Void (1938) by Edmond Hamilton.
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Human Head Transplant-related
news articles:
- BrainBridge Concept Transplant Of Human Head Proposed
| Prairie Madness - And Space Sickness |
| Neuralink Will Allow Humans To Communicate With ... Animals? |
| 3D Printed Organs From Space |
| Health Kiosk Has No Human Doctor |
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'Space-sickness is one of the most unpleasant sensations that a human being can experience. Not all are subject to it...'
'...I saw a nice black heavy-looking cloud sailing by just now, and I can get the electrical machine out in five minutes to draw it down.'
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'The answer to the dumb student's prayer.'
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'It was a relief to enter one of the comfortable autos, whisper a direction down the tube, and just know that you would be taken to your destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest manner.'
'But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced...'
