MAN-MADE HEART

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22628, 20 July 1935, Page 7

MAN-MADE HEART

CLAIMS BY AMERICANS LINDBERGH AS SCIENTIST Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh has been revealed in a new role, that of research biologist. The revelation (says the Chicago Tribune) was the result of an achievement as startling in the realm of pure science as was that of his flight to Paris eight years ago in the field of aviation.

Rockefeller' Institute announced that Colonel Lindbergh has developed an artificial heart and lungs that make possible the revival and growth of entire human organs outside the body. This means that a heart or a kidney, for instance, can be taken out of a body, connected to the device, and kept aliye, growing, and operating entirely independently of the human system for any desired length of time. In 26 separate experiments organ? have been “ transplanted ” in this fashion and their resurrection, growth and operation studied by scientists. The advantages of such a scientific development are immediately apparent even to the layman. It makes possible the manufacture outside of the body of the hormones of the ductless glands, themselve? titily slightly plumbed by science. It makes possible the isolation of the substances that make the glands grow and function; the discovery of the laws that govern the association of organs, the “ cooperation ” between parts of the body that has long been a mystery; the production and treatment, outside the body where they cannot cause pain and death, of all sorts of organic and circulatory diseases, such as heart ailments, kidney disorders, hardening of the arteries, tuberculosis, diabetes. It is hoped that even cancer can now be made to start and grow outside the body, where it can be watched and where it may be learned what it is, and how it can be controlled. NOBEL PRIZE WINNER.

Lindbergh’s achievements in biology came to light through the publication of an article in " Science,” official organ of the American Association for the Advancements of Science, largest body of its kind in the United States. The article was signed by Colonel Lindbergh and Dr Alexis Carrel, Nobel prize winner for his development of methods of simple tissue culture., which have enabled him to preserve life in part of a heart taken in 1912 from an embryo chick. It was Dr Carrel who revealed that Lindbergh turned to the Rockefeller Institute laboratories just before his son, Charles, jun., was kidnapped and slain. A few weeks after the body was found he returned and buried himself in work. Dr Carrel describes Lindbergh as a brilliant student in the field of biology, and says that his talents have not heretofore been even suspected by the. public. He is now Dr Carrel’s “ best assistant.” the scientist asserts.

“ The name he will leave in that science will be as illustrious as in aviation.” Dr Carrel said.

Lindbergh’s first achievement in his latest field of endeavour. was. made four years ago, when, again with Dr Carrel, he signed an article “ C. A. Lindbergh, Rockefeller Institute,” that described the development of a device for the separation of blood corpuscles. The apparatus operated on the principle of the cream separator. It was then applied to the same purpose as the new equipment, but failed in minor points to fulfil its designer’s hopes in this regard. The new artificial heart and lungs, with their man-made " blood,” are the result of the. continued-experimentation since that time.

The new Carrel-Lindbergh apparatus is regarded by science as one of the most sensational in the annals of medicine. A method of maintaining life in complete organs outside of the body was recognised as early as 1812 by the physiologist Le Gallois as the best means of peering into the mysteries of life's most vital processes, and even into the mystery of life itself. DREAM OF SCIENCE. Over the 123 years since Le Gallois it has been the constant search and dream of science to find this technique. The best that has been accomplished previously was the work of Dr Carrel himself, that of keeping bits of tissue alive indefinitely. But to maintain life and growth in whole complicated systems, such as a heart, an ovary, a spleen, a thyroid or adrenal gland, until now has been but a hope. To, illustrate the complete success of the Carrel-Lindbergh technique, the article describes one experiment of the 26, which was performed on an ovary. The organ not only lived and grew in its artificial medium, but produced corpora lutea, the mysterious "yellow bodies" which appear periodically on the gland, and without which motherhood is impossible. The apparatus itself is not described in the article, and the institute refused to explain its form or operation until it had published its own complete report. However, it is presumably a closed system, to prevent possibility of contamination and infection, as was the earlier device. The artificial heart circulates a fluid containing all the known properties of blood, the article explains, including the proteins, acids, and salts in their proper proportions, body sulphur, insulin, thyroxin, the isolable vitamins, and enzymes. The fluid even is coloured to its natural shade by the addition of a red phenol dye. A mixture of gas, SO per cent, oxygen, 3 or 4 per cent, carbon dioxide, and the rest nitrogen, is forced into the fluid at intervals, just as through the lungs of the human body. The “ heart ” beats at the rate of 60 times a minute. In order to carry the glucose and bicarbonate ingredients in the proper proportions, the " blood ” has to be 2000 times the volume of the organ to be nourished.