An American neuroscientist who channeled Dr. Frankenstein in an effort to transplant human consciousness and save souls by cooling brains and placing them in new bodies has been unraveled in a fascinating new book.
Robert White strived to transplant human heads to save human souls. His story told in Mr. Humble and Dr. Butcher: A Monkey's Head, the Pope's Neuroscientists, and the Quest to Transplant the Soul by Brandy Schillace.
Unraveling the American Dr. Frankenstein
In the midst of extreme pressures to one-up the Soviet Union, White conducted brain experiments on hundred of monkeys, mice, and dogs during the 50s and 60s, before he 'perfected' head transplant surgeries in the 1970s.
The first successful transplant monkey died only after 8 days due to the body's rejection of the transplanted head. Additionally, the monkey was unable to breathe on its own, nor could it move because its spinal cord was not connected.
Despite the obvious flaws of White's experiments, Dr. Frankenstein adamantly believed that the procedure could and should be done on humans in an attempt to transplant the 'souls' of those paralyzed into healthier bodies that will provide them with a second life.
As a devout Catholic and friends with Pope John Paul II, White believed that his work had a higher purpose, a divine calling in preserving the soul by saving the brain. However, White died in 2010 before he was able to perform the surgery on human beings.
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The Life of Robert White
In 1926, in Duluth, Minnesota, Robert White was born as the eldest son of Robert White Sr, a reserve US army officer.
Deeply rooted in Catholicism, White moved to Minneapolis at the age of 15 where he discovered his passion and love of science inspired by one of his biology teachers at DeLaSalle.
His father died after serving in the Philippines during World War II, where Robert signed up in 1944.
Despite graduating as a Valedictorian, White's passion for science led him to be shipped out to Indiana for intensive training under the medical corps.
While residing in the South Pacific, treating American soldiers in the Philippines, and moving to Japan to set up a clinical laboratory. Here he saw men paralyzed from the neck down which fueled his determination to help paraplegics to live more productive lives.
White graduated from Harvard medical in 1953 with honors. Meanwhile, Vladimir Demikhov was performing experimental surgery on small puppy heads placed on full-grown mastiffs.
Soon after, Robert White headed the US radical transplant program. He wrote at the time, "I don't think the soul is in your arms, in your heart, or in your kidneys. I believe the brain tissue is the physical repository of the soul."
In 1999, White's life-long dream of doing the procedure on a human volunteer almost came true in a surgery that would have cost from $100,000-$200,000. However, the US government stepped in, pulling the plug on the operation.
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