Some time this year—perhaps tomorrow, perhaps next week, perhaps months from now—a human being may be raised from the dead at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia. Literally raised. from the dead, that is.
A patient who has died on the operating table, who
has nothing
further to lose
in the way of
life, will prove whether a mechanical heart-lung device can take over the task of circulating and cleansing blood in a human body until its natural heart and lungs can renew their stilled function.
The device has worked satisfactorily on dogs, having taken over the function of one such animal's heart and lungs for more than an hour. The dog is alive and normal today.
It will not be applied to a human being, however, until the patient in question has factually died. It may then become still another forward step of medical science's remark a b 1 e achievements in lengthening the average span of human life.
The Hahnemann surgeons who developed the new machine are confident it can be applied to human patients as successfully as it has been applied to dogs. A parent, child, husband, wife or brother may thus be brought back from the dark valley and restored to the cherishing presence of loved ones.
In at least 30 of the nation's principal cities that possibility now kindles a new beacon of hope. But New Orleans is not one of them. The discovery of such a benign instrumentality could never have been made here, nor can its blessing be enjoyed in this great center of healing.. Loyola's school of dentistry and the medical colleges of Tulane and Louisiana State University are justly famous. But all of them now labor under an increasingly heavy handicap shortage of laboratory animals on which students can be taught the fundamentals of medico-surgical technique.
