RESTORATION OF LIFE.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17936, 3 December 1923, Page 6

RESTORATION OF LIFE.

_—« i EXPERIMENT WITH CHICKEN. DROWNED AND REVIVED. (raoie oca owb cobbesjpowdbst.) SYDNEY, November 22. Medical men are not inclined to treat 6oriously a story that has appeared in several Sydney newspapers of an'apparently dead chicken being restored to life by the application of heat, and the suggestion made that the same principle might be applied to human beings. "The chicken was drowned in a sink, where it remained immersed for more than an hour before being discovered," says Mr J. A. Beattie, of Lir.dfield, who relates the story. "No signs of pulsation or respiration could be detected. Acting on impulse, I wrapped the little bird in a cloth, leaving the beak exposed. I then placed it in the gas stove, keeping the temperature at approximately blood heat. Alter 20 min\rtes, a slight movement in the cloth became apparent. Another ten minutes, and the beak slightly opened and closed again. Five minutes' more and the eyes opened and closed. "At this stage I realised that my experiment was going to be crowned with success. After another five minutes tho chicken began to chirp, and struggled violently. I took the youngster to its excited parent, and after two or three attempts it got to its feet and followed the lien to tho fowl yard. At five months it started laying, and is etiil living." Mr Beattde believes that , research along these lines may be fruitful in, revolutionising past theories regarding j the resuscitation of human bodies, and bringing forth proof that animation may bo restored after hope had been abandoned and life pronounced extinct.

"I have a hypothesis," he explains, "that the corpuscles which are the life of the blood were not defunct in the chicken, but simply inert. Consequently, when artificial beat was applied to the Ikxlv. the partly coagidated blood reverted to the liquid state, the corpuscles became re-animated, and began to rush to and fro through tne veins and arteries, setting up re-eirculation to the lungs, causing expansion and contraction of that area, and restoring respiration which finally set every vita! organ in motion." A well-known Macquarie street doctor said yesterday: ' 'There have l>een any number of cases where life apparently has disappeared, but which really were cases of suspended animation. \in the case of the chicken, the fact that no signs of pulsation could be seen does not necessarily imply they were absent. Partly coagulated blood would never return to a liquid state because vital changes have taken place which could not be undone by a physics' triplication like heat. Summed up. ■ I think the diagnosis of the bird's death was incorrect."

Another Maoquarie street doctor pointed out that the examination was not carried out under the eyes of any scientific person. "That throws doubt on the accuracy of the man's observation," he said. "Even were the circumstances exactly as described i you could not compare the results of an experiment upon a lowly organised animal like a chicken with the results of a similar experiment upon a highly organised aninial like a human being."