For centuries it was accepted that death came with the cessation of the vital functions of the animal or the human being. When it was found that the living being stopped breathing and his pulse had disappeared, he was said to be dead.
READ ALSO: About the neutral bathroom and other basic biological concepts that urgently need to be clarified
Knowing or sensing that that diagnosis of death could be wrong, many characters asked to be buried with a device made up of a rope tied to a bell that was outside the coffin. The idea was that, if the person came to his senses while in the box, he could, by pulling the rope, alert the cemetery staff. Hence the expression “the bell saved him”.
Mechanical ventilators as resuscitators
Knowing that the cessation of breathing was the fundamental sign of death, it is thought that the Belgian physician and anatomist Andrew Vesalius was the first to suggest how life could be extended, restoring the breath to a dying person.
In “De Humani Corporis Fabrica” of 1543, he wrote: “In order for life to be restored to the animal, an opening must be made in the trunk of the trachea and, through a cane tube placed in that opening, it must be blown so that the lung rises again and takes in air” .
Vesalius described the procedure that is done todaywhen very seriously ill patients are given a tracheostomy and connected to a mechanical ventilator, to bring them back to life.
In other words, the mechanical fan was the first method that moved the milestone of what was considered death for centuries: shortness of breath. Therefore, when talking about using a mechanical ventilator, we are talking about resuscitating the patient.
pig experiment
Researchers at Yale University, who had already revived some brain cells in pigs in 2019, announce that they have achieved it with other organs of the animal.
For that, causing cardiac arrest, they caused the death of almost 100 pigs, and left them lifeless for an hour. Complying with animal cruelty requirementsthe pigs were previously anesthetized to avoid suffering and were in hibernation during the experiment.
During that time, the researchers carried out all the usual tests to certify that the animals were dead: measuring vital functions and taking electroencephalograms and electrocardiograms.
“The mechanical ventilator was the first method that moved the milestone of what was considered death for centuries: lack of breathing.”
After an hour, the researchers transfused, into a vein of the corpses, blood mixed with OrganExa special solution with a synthetic form of hemoglobinmixed with other compounds and molecules that help protect cells and prevent the formation of blood clots.
Six hours after OrganEx treatment, the team found that certain basic cellular functions were active in many areas of the pigs’ bodies, including the heart, liver, and kidneys, and that some organ functions they had been restored.
The pigs in the control group, which only received a blood transfusion, did not show any functional activity in their cells. That is, they remained dead.
One of the scientists, Dr. David Andrijevic, told “The New York Times” that they didn’t know what to expect. “Having achieved the restoration of cellular functions was incredible for us.” Dr. Sam Parnia, a professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, told the Science Media Center in London that this study “demonstrates that, after death, cells in mammalian organs [incluidos los humanos] they don’t die for many hours.”
Possible uses of this technology
Although it is very, very early for it to be experimented on in humans, the researchers think the technique it could be used to increase the supply of human organs for transplantation.
They also said it could be used to prevent serious damage to a patient’s heart after a massive heart attack, or to a person’s brain after a severe stroke.
Legal and ethical implications
Dr. Nita Farahany, a law professor at Duke University (North Carolina) who studies the ethical, legal and social implications of emerging technologies, told “The New York Times” that the experiment was “mind-boggling”, but that raises important questions about the definition of death. “If until now we have assumed that death is a state of being, could it be that there are forms of death that are reversible?”
READ ALSO: This is the latest on monkeypox and COVID-19
In a commentary published in the same issue of the journal “Nature,” Dr. Brendan Parent, director of research ethics and policy at New York University, said the experiment raised difficult questions about life and death, For if it is accepted that –with the current definition of death– those pigs were dead, the critical question is: What still unknown cellular function or functions could change the definition of death?
Just as mechanical ventilators – by restoring breathing to the dying patient – moved the milestone of what was previously considered death, it is possible that restoring cellular functions to what, until now, we considered a corpse, move the pole again of what is considered death.