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Five Mad Scientists Who Went Too Far in the Name of Science
Science sometimes creeps me out. Not so much because of the discoveries of new planets or animals, or even diseases. It creeps me out because of what we as humans, are capable of doing in the name of science. And as much as I’d like to think that these kind of experiments never happened, they did. Scientists go to far in their “madness.”
Perhaps you once upon a time read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein? Some of the scientists listed (Ure, Galvani, and Dippel) were the inspiration behind Dr. Frankenstein. And despite Shelley’s wonderful imagination, no amount of idealized creation could think of such things that these men were capable of doing.
Vladimir Demikhov (1916-1998)
Demikhov was a pioneer in organ transplantation. Although he was unable to be the first to do heart transplants in humans, he did do many organ transplants in animals. He was most notoriously known for creating a cruel monstrosity in 1954. He surgically attached the head, shoulders, and front legs of a puppy onto a mature dog. People were astonished, if not repulsed, to see the animals lap up milk from bowls.
This creation wasn’t his only. In a span of 15 years, he created 20 more of these creatures. None of them lasted more than a month due to tissue rejection or infections.
Giovanni Aldini (1762-1834)
Aldini was the nephew of Luigi Galvani. His uncle essentially discovered the concept of galvanism, when experimenting with electrical currents on frog legs. Aldini took those experiments further. Aldini conducted his experiments on corpses.
In front of an audience, he conducted an experiment on a hung murderer, George Forster. He applied conducting rods to the man’s rectum, whereby the dean man began to punch the air, and his legs began to kick and flinch. Rods applied to the face made it clench and quiver. The left eye popped open. Several people present feared the man had come back to life, and had he actually sprung forth, he would have to be re-executed. One individual was so horrified, that shortly upon leaving the spectacle, he reportedly died.
Andrew Ure (1778-1857)
Andrew Ure, despite his many accomplishments as a Scottish doctor, was more famously known for four experiments conducted on Matthew Clydesdale on November 4, 1818. The first experiment involved an incision in the nape of the neck. Part of the vertebra was removed. An incision was then made in the left hip. Then a cut was made in the heel. Two rods connected to a battery were placed in the neck and hip, which caused great, uncontrollable convulsions. The 2nd rod was then placed into the heel, whereby the left leg kicked with such force, that it nearly knocked over an assistant. The 2nd experiment made the diaphragm of Forster’s chest rise and lower, as if he were breathing again.
Ure had reported that had Forster’s blood not been drained, or his neck broken from the hanging, he was sure he could bring him back to life. The 3rd experiment showed the extraordinary facial expressions exhibited when Ure made an incision in Forster’s forehead. The rod was inserted, and Forster’s face began to show emotions of anger, horror, despair, anguish, and hideous, contorted smiles. The expressions scared viewers so badly, that one doctor who was known to have a strong stomach, passed out on the spot. The final experiment had people believing that Forster was indeed alive. A cut was made into the forefinger. Once the rod was inserted, Forster began to raise his hand and point to people in the audience. Needless to say, many were horrified.
Sergei Bruyukhonenko
His research led to the development of open-heart procedures. He developed a crude machine called the autojektor (a heart and lung machine). By using this primitive machine, Bryukhonenko kept the heads of severed dogs alive. In 1928, he displayed one of the heads in front of an audience. To prove it was real, he banged a hammer on the table. The head flinched. When a light was shone in its eyes, the eyes blinked. And when it was fed a piece of cheese, the remnants promptly popped out of the esophageal tube, much to the displeasure of disgusted viewers.
Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734)
Dippel was a bit of a weirdo. He was an alchemist who was trying to find ways to extend life. He lived in the castle of Frankenstein (yup, this place actually existed) in Darmstadt, Germany. When corpses from the Frankenstein cemetery began to disappear, he was chased out of the village. He was also known to have boiled the flesh of corpses and animals to make elixirs. He was an ardent vivisectionist (operation on live specimens), and although he was constantly searching for the elixir for long life, it would elude him.
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I don’t see how Dipple is a scientist. Nor do I see how Aldini or Ure went too far.
I think Dr. Robert J White should be added here. He did the first head transplant on a monkey, the film is horrifying.
No sir, I didn’t like it.
One you missed was the doctor in Italy who came up with the quack theory of electro-shock “therapy” from watching pigs being electrocuted before being butchered. it has killed many people, and caused more to commit suicide, including Ernest Hemingway.
i hope they perfect that machine that kept that head alive it was remarkable.
#4 - actually electroshock is, despite public perception, not quackery. I’ve been to an electro therapy clinic for treating depression (and some schizophrenia) and it made a huge difference to the patients there. For many patient’s it was the Granted, i’m sure the treatment has evolved a since Hemmingway’s days. It’s generally reserved for the worst cases in which traditional therapy and medications fail. For an amazing story, search for Dr. Sherwin Nuland’s talk on electrotherapy on TED.com
How about hundreds of scientists every day who kill human embryos in the name of stem cell research?
Oh shut up Tim.
or the crazy nazi scientists who conducted experiments on concentration camp prisoners
I just vurped. And now I’m going to curl up under my covers and cry myself to sleep.
wnr, you fail in life. electroshock quackery has made a vegetable of my brother. get a real job. maybe they should put you as number 1 here. or maybe you should go for your own treatment.
> #7
Tim, what about the millions of braincells you kill every day?
Bryukhonenko kept the heads of severed dogs alive.
translated from Russian it seems ..
i know that everybody thinks that..ok,it\’s in the name of science and a lot of good came out of it but i don\’t believe it\’s right to do those kind of things in the name of sciene or for medical purposes,that\’s just monstrous
@John.
Or Unit 731 in Japan during WWII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
#12….ECT (what you so lovingly refer to as electroshock) has saved my life. If it had not been for my doctor to being proactive and noticing none of the medications I had used were working, we made the choice to do one session. It gave me and him time to find a stable combination of medication. So I credit it for saving my life. I was sedated, and I don’t remember a thing about the shock. I did not however turn into a vegetable, or lose all of my memories. So there ya go. Your brothers situation is horrible, but in todays age, ECT is very safe.
Gruesome! Ugh, I think I would have been passing out in the audience as well! Great article though, it amazes me too what people will do “in the name of science.”
Maybe I’m just too mad, but none of these seemed too bad to me. Or at least not morally. Maybe it’s just that I’m not a bit animal rights guy.
I was actually expecting to find more German experiments from WWII. Now they DIDN’T hold back.
This should never be tolerated. I’m not one of those PETA members, but I think it’s just wrong to make another living creature go through that. If that’s possible, imagine what else they’ve done. Humans?
Understandable, it is WWII, but I’m sure there are plenty of sick things going on still.
There was a US patent awarded in 1987 for keeping an animal’s head alive in a bucket. I read that the inventor was repulsed that it was possible and patented the method so as to be able to deny others the right to use it. Don’t have any citation for that though. Here’s the patent info: http://www.google.com/patents?id=DxktAAAAEBAJ&dq=4,666,425
BTW, note the assignee company name: the Dis Corporation. Ha ha ha.
Bravo, excellent article and research. In the name of science has become a term to loosely used to hide behind academics, so to shield some very bad people to create evil inventions. I for one would think that in the larger scientific community that these types of experiments would not be endorsed or tolerated as mainstream or routine science.
God Bless,
Nelson Doyle
I don’t get Ure? You say he “was more famously known for four experiments conducted on Matthew Clydesdale” but then you continue to discuss Forster from Aldini’s piece?
Thank you for this article. Excellent research really; I was used to memorizing scientists but I never came across these names.
Shocking stuff and undoubtedly cruel, but has led to many benifits that we now take for granted.
How many people have been saved via transplants versus animals subjected to these terrible experiments?
As a means to an end I am grateful to these scientists even if I wouldn’t do these things myself.
Thumb up for you. Read two of my related articles in the name of science. They are very cruel.
http://www.socyberty.com/Activism/Human-Cruelness-and-Animal-Nightmare.77727
http://www.scienceray.com/Biology/Human-Biology/The-First-Creation-of-Human-Animal-Hybrid-Embryo.120687
Thanks and regards as usual,
Chan
Animals like these love and feel and fear, just like we do.
People are afraid to admit that.
Animals like these have saved human live.
Even given their lives to save a human.
And we STILL treat them like this.
very sad
who cares, the experiments looked fun!
Great Article.
sergei and valdimir must be the most cruel ppl in the world..what kind of sick person conducts experiments with poor helpless puppies n dogs??
Monstruoso. Cientistas que praticam experimentos como esses deveriam ser punidos com pena de morte e escurraçados da face da terra. As cenas que visualizei aqui são medonhas e sem um pingo de humanidade. Estou horrorizada, triste e perplexa em ver até onde vai a crueldade do ser humano. Talvez ele devesse tentar implantar a cabeça da mãe dele na irmã dele.
Que horror! Unfortunately animals under our stewardship at this very moment are being mistreated, tested upon and tortured in horrifying ways under the excuse of testing cosmetic’s safety, industrial farming, so-called medicinal extracts. The majority of you reading this may not realize it, but the chicken, pork or beef you’ve enjoyed recently has, in all likely hood, been raised in the most inhumane(oxymoron) and despicably cruel conditions imaginable. If you were to personally witness this you’d vomit and not touch meat for a long, long time, if ever.
Science? I’m a scientist, and there is no need or justification to cross into cruelty, disregarding the value and dignity of all life.
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i agree with her
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sad
if you ask me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,this is creepy and disturbing this will make me have nightmares.
It made me cry it looked like that dog with no head was in pain i think it is very cool and very excellent but it is still disturbing
The only one of these five who actually harmed a living thing was Demikhov, and whether Demikhov’s ubjects suffereed is unknown.
Aldini: messing with a corpse. Not considered tasteful to our sensibilities, but nobody was hurt.
Ure: same. He might has well have been playing with a puppet.
Bruyukhonenko: Those dogs were dead; basic lower brain functions are not the same as being alive.
Dippel: sounds like hearsay by suspicious villagers to me.
The fact that you find these disgusting is based on the fact that you don’t understand what’s going on. Such experiments as mentioned above on the effects of electricity on the body revealed the electrical nature of the nervous system and are thus the foundation of modern neurology.
Spooky stuff
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The things scientists do in the name of science. Sorry about the dog with heads. Very unnatural.
I bet that in the 21st century we will be able to bring someone back to life. This stuff isn’t scary. It’s beautiful. BTW There’s a possibility that the guy who was connected to the electricity felt it. Luckily we don’t have to be on his place
That’s the reason why I want to be cremated after death.
so cruel to dogs…must be torture to live without a body…
I ate meat for most of my life until someone told me to check out http://www.meat.org. Now I feel sad at how I was unaware of the true suffering people put animals through. I don’t call myself a vegetarian, because labels suck. The Buddha dude said “All beings love life and fear violence.”, and I could see that fear for the first time in the faces of our source for “100% Top Quality Lean Beef”. I’m careful not to punish people for being like I once was. How can you be mad at a 2 year old for not being able to read? Compassion and education is a better way.
@ Dean
SAD! I cried when saw that video, I’m not sure what to think.
The article was exceptionally interesting. Thank you so much for sharing- I couldn’t stop reading.
they are reall mad .
I liked it!
If it weren’t for experiments like these (not these particular ones, mind you, but ones LIKE these), people like myself would not be alive today. It’s a shame, but I am not going to trade in my life over it, to be quite honest.
Thank you everyone for posting your feedback on this article. This particular subject (in the instance of Sergei and Vladimir) was a difficult one to tackle. While I don’t condone the stupid senseless experiments done on animals (like in Chan Lee Peng’s articles), sometimes science must use animals as a necessary evil. Sergei and Vladmir both used dogs when conducting organ transplants and open heart surgeries, procedures that have saved thousands of lives. With this I wholeheartedly agree, because my mother was saved by such operations before dying from cancer. However, I don’t think it’s right to make disgusting anomolies, or use the head of a dog as some sick scientific experiment. If science hurts and maims animals in the name of “science”, without even having accomplished anything for it, then it’s wrong and outright evil.
Ah. I almost cried for the dogs. goddam freaks
scary…
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I agree with lost in arizona, if they hurt animals for no reason, thats selfish and evil.
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I’m sure a lot of medical advances came from these disturbing studies.
I must say, it’s easy to see the horror genre footprint by looking at these.
The doctors and research is real but the video is a hoax. If you notice when the hammer is banging on the table near the end of the video you can see the dog’s head moving across the table. Physics people!!!!!! If the head is moved forward because of muscles it must have more weight from the neck down or it won’t move. I can see blinking and ears moving. But look at the head it’s sliding (not very much but it does move).
Oh my gosh! i didn’t know this. This is horible..!!
When I say I “liked it”, I don’t mean I LIKED it. This were horrific. I think I might vomit. Why would ANYONE do this?! Especially the first guy and Sergei whatever…how could they POSSIBLY do something so disgusting and morally wrong?!?!?!
it was cool i liked it alot
Yes, absolutely horrible. What kind of creativity is this?
The article was good.. As an animal lover I was disgusted and what some people have done to animals in the name of “science”.
The article was well written though, even if the stories were repulsive.
Pretty much all of these experiments led to important medical discoveries that help save human lives every day. How is this any worse than using dangerous chemicals on rats. Just because they were used on dogs doesn’t make it any worse. I applaud these men for their important discoveries. It’s better to test it on dogs than humans. I don’t see how it’s morally wrong if it saves lives.
I don’t believe that these men have the right to even be named scientists. There attempts at life extension is ridiculous and inhumane. Real scientist used ethical and humane resources and knowledge to provide actual cures for the ill and sickly.
“The Evil That Men Do.”
man cant u type somethimg shorter…………………………..
Any good that medical science does is not as a result of any of these cruel experiments . In these examples no end can justify the wicked cruelty.We did not advance to our present degree of knowledge of surgery etc. from these acts of cruelty. We could have been much further advanced had we taken different and humane routes. One more point is, that all that is wrong and faulty and unhelpful in health and medicine today is based on these wicked acts masquerading as science. On a foudation of such wicked cruelty we cannot build healthy teachings.
In the scheme of things, these experiments weren’t too bad. All the scientists, barring the alchemist, were working on something helpful to humans in the long run, i.e. all the transplantation stuff, which is now a godsend for thousands of patients, and honestly, their only dogs, not that big a deal.
I would consider some of the scientist of the holocaust much worse, because they performed their experiments on humans, and were doing it just to see what would happen to their victims, with no higher helpfulness in mind.
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
Too far in the name of science? Not possible.
so, so… fasinating, like making hybrid animals! actual people who tried to bring people back to life. amazing
you’r all idiots,
if it were not for the great scientific minds of these people you fat bloated arse wipes wouldn’t have organ replacements such as heart transplantation’s
AHHHH!!!!!! these are creepy!!!!
i think i saw something on supernatural on that last guy. but it’s just a show.
Where can I get that head keepaalivemachine? My dog shazam (whom I love dearly) runs away a lot and i am arsid some day he wont come back.If I cut off his head and keep him alive I can protect him better and care for him better.why do we need the rest of him anyway?the head is the only part of our dogs we all realy interact with. and think about all the dog food I wil save money on!!!
your experiment was good i appreciate it
really creepy!