PROLONGING LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 7 (Supplement)

PROLONGING LIFE.

ARTIFICIAL HUMAN ORGANS. WONDERFUL DEVELOPMENTS. MEDICAL SCIENCE AND MECHANISM.

(By ANTHONY WAYNE.)

Artificial hearts, lungs and breathing devices are among the newer orgar.3 now offered the human family; their use snakes it possible to greatly prolong life. Medical science is finding _in the use of mechanical contrivances a useful and valuable ally for the saving of life. This is no denial of the place that medicine holds. When the doctor's preemption isskilfully administered the patient frequently is restored to health. It has taken centuries to obtain the knowledge of chemistry that relates to this method. The early concoctions have been replaced by a thousand new (chemicals. Usefpl knowledge relating to sleep has now been secured by mechanical methods. New foods have been produced that never could have grown on trees or in the fields. The physician is able to advise regarding eating, sleeping and breathing habits. There are certain times, however, when through accident or by reason, of disease, these functions are seriously disturbed. It becomes impossible to sleep or eat or breathe. It is at such times that the mechanicallyinclined physician has stepped forward •with new inventions—machines of wheels, motors and gears. By their aid! it has been proved possible to save life and restore health. The human machine failed, so another machine was produced to temporarily take over certain necessary functions. There is a new science developing in the production and use of machines that aid in prolonging life. It is based on the theory that the body is made up of many parts, even as the motor car is put together by the use of bolts, rings, valves and other devices. Suppose, for example, that the heart stumbles and grows weak. Immediately injections are given to prevent blood coagulation. Adrenalin, a well-known hearty stimulant, is next administered. In this way the heart will be made to function again. Lacking such injections the individual with the failing heart must certainly be considered dead. A 6hort year ago the stumbling heart brought death or stupof. No one knew what to do. The scientist of this day Bees the heart as just an organ, like the carburettor for the motor car. The lungs are not considered by him more wonderful than a mechanical air purifier. Thus, he argues, if a man stops breathing he may still be aided to keep on living. The principle is the same as with the loss of a spark plug in a macliine or the short circuiting of the ignition. No one thinks it necessary to discard the whole motor car because one part fails.

Mechanical Organs Supplied. Recently Dr. 0. S. Gibbs, of Dalhousie University, was able to keep cats alive over long periods of time with a rubber pump substituted for a heart. Now if the lack of a true heart, can be considered as evidence of death, then certainly these cats were dead, yet they were alive to all intents and purposes. They were able to purr, move and eat. Their artificial hearts worked as well as the hearts which nature gave them. The reasoning of the mechanicallyinclined scientist is that if a heart has once failed it may fail again, thus it is better to substitute with a heart that can 'be installed in the place of the weak organ. If the lungs ceased to do their work, or accident prevents them, why not take them out and put in their place a new organ that will not fail ? If the cat can be helped, then eventually human 'beings can be so helped. Recently Philip Drinker and Louis A. Shaw, of the School of Public Health, Harvard University, devised an ingenious apparatus that will mechanically keep people alive for long periods, simply by making them breathe or breathing for them. Without the aid of their machine death would come. By all the rules of another and older day they should be considered dead and beyond recall. In Bellevue Hospital, New York, there has recently 'been installed one of the machines invented by the Harvard University scientists. It has been used to supply the mechanical stimulus that will make . breathing possible. The manual system of producing artificial respiration has accomplished wonders, but the Drinker and Shaw device Avill doubtless revive many who would otherwise die. In cases of electrical shock, concussion, gas poisoning, smoke suffocation, drowning, and for scores of industrial accidents the machine will pro long life for an indefinite period of time. The patient is placed in a hermetically sealed tube, his head protruding through an airtight rubber collar. His appearance resembles a ibeheaded corpse, yet he is comfortable. Respiration is brought about by rhythmically increasing and decreasing the pressure in the chamber. The degree of pressure can be. closely watched, as recorded on several dials. Other markers tell of temperature, blood movement. If oxygen is to be given, a hood is placed over the individual's head. By such purely physical means is restoration to normal living conditions made possible. As in the case of the administered adrenalin, the man lives who would otherwise die because of mechanical aids for the body's chief organs. Also recently Dr. S. S. Brunkhanenko, a Russian scientist, was able to revive a detached dog's head by supplying it with an artificial heart and a blood substitute, composed of salts of blood and the chemical adrenalin. "The severed head opened its eyes, rejected acids with the tongue, and swallowed a piece of cheese on the tongue. For more th"n three hours every test showed that the dog's head was as much alive as if attached to the hody," the doctor said. ■ This is along the same line as the method used to make frogs jerk and start. The leg of a frog, although removed, can be made to respond to the stimulus of an electric wire. The nerves

are still capable of doing their work, although separated from the body of the frog. The mechanical respirator perfected by Mr. Drinker and Mr. Shaw, of Harvard University, is so adapted that the patient lies on a mattress placed on a trunk which is attached to the lid of the tank. The head and neck extend through a rubber collar. The lid and trunk of the tank can be quickly pulled in and out with ease to permit occasional examination. By means of electrically-driven blowers, alternate positive and negative pressures and respiration by positive pressures the result is the same as though performed by Nature —they are physiologically normal. A young girl was placed in the mechanical 'breather because certain of her muscles were paralysed. By means of the device her life was preserved, although ordinarily she could have lived but a few hours. , Within the strange machine she breathed easily and without pain, and even slept. The machine/did the breathing for her. Now X-ray machines have been perfected that eliminate all possible shock being given to the patient or the attendants. In the use of such devices it is now possible to use the powerful X-ray more frequently, with less danger and for long periods of time. In a few years, say these scientists, there will be scores of-people going about their business, who, except for the mechanical methods employed, would be dead and buried. Some may have artificial hearts, others an artificial larynx, still others be supplied with a platinum skull, a few with silver tubes in their systems, and a number of other assembled parts to supply the functions considered necessary by the body. To adapt a phrase : Millions living would not be allorwed to die because mechanical methods supplied them with life.—("Star" and A.A.N.S. Copyright.)