DEVELOPMENT IN MEDICINE

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21506, 22 June 1935, Page 15

DEVELOPMENT IN MEDICINE

Keeping Organs Alive Outside Body GREAT IMPORTANCE CLAIMED (tWITTD PUK3S ASSOCIATION —BY ELBCTBIO TEI.EQRAI'U—COPYItIaIiT.) (Received June 21, 9.20 p.m.) NEW YORK, June 21. Apparatus and technique capable of keeping human organs alive outside the body have been perfected by Dr. Alexis Carrel and Colonel Lindbergh, the famous aviator, working under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. This announcement is regarded as one of the most sensational in the annals of medicine and science.

According to the report, which is jointly signed by Dr. Carrel and Colonel Lindbergh, they have created an ''artificial heart and man-made blood stream," enabling science, for the first time, to keep vital organs alive and functioning indefinitely in what is described as a "chamber of eternal life."

Their methods, as perfected with the organs of animals, consists of the transplantation of an organ or of any part of the body into a sterile chamber, and of its artificial feedin" with nutrient fluid through arteries.

They say that the process is not a mere substitute for the well-known tissue culture, but that through the employment of complex mechanical and surgical procedures whole organs are enabled to live isolated from body tissue. "Culture deals with cells as the units of structure, our method deals with cellular societies as an organic whole," says the report. The method makes it possible to carry out important experiments with the human organs. Heart disease, kidney disorders, hardening of arteries, diabetes, tuberculosis, cancer, and other dread diseases can now be studied closely under controlled conditions.

Dr. Carrel and Colonel Lindbergh revealed that 26 experiments had been performed since the latest model of their chamber had been constructed. Adult fowls and cats were generally used. Dr. Carrel is a former winner of the Nobel Prize and one of the discoverers of the Carrel-Dakin solution, which saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers, in the war.

That the development of a method of keeping human organs alive outside the body was very important, and likely to" prove of considerable value, was the opinion expressed by a Christchurch doctor in commenting on the cable message last evening.

Earlier experimenter;; had developed a method whereby the hearts of animals had been kept alive in solution for a number of years, but 'lie results now announced wore a notable extension of that method.