Experiments in the Revival of Organisms

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms
Screenshot from the film showing the dog's head attached to Brukhonenko's autojektor
Release date	1940
Running time	19:31
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian English
Budget	£20,000

Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (Russian: Эксперименты по оживлению организма) is a 1940 motion picture which documents Soviet research into the resuscitation of clinically dead organisms. It is available from the Prelinger Archives, and it is in the public domain. The British scientist J. B. S. Haldane appears in the film's introduction. The operations are credited to Doctor Sergei Brukhonenko and Boris Levinskovsky. The "autojektor" device demonstrated in the film is similar to modern ECMO machines, as well as the systems commonly used for renal dialysis in modern nephrology.

The film depicts and discusses, without going into much technical detail, a series of medical experiments. First, a heart (canine, as with all in this film) is shown being isolated from a body, with four tubes connected. Electricity has been applied to the organ, causing it to beat in the same way that it would have done in a living organism.

It then shows a lung in a tray, operated by bellows, oxygenating blood.

Following the lung scene we are shown the operation of a primitive heart-lung machine, the autojektor (or autojector), composed of a pair of diaphragm linear pumps and what appears to be an oxygen bubble chamber. We then see it is supplying a canine head with oxygenated blood. The head is shown to respond to external stimuli, but the film does not show the arterial and venous connections to the head.

Finally, a dog is brought to clinical death (depicted mostly via a graphical plot of lung and heart activity) by draining all blood from it, left for ten minutes, then connected to the autojektor described earlier, which gradually returns the blood into the animal's circulation. After several minutes, the heart fibrillates, then restarts a normal rhythm. Respiration likewise resumes and the machine is removed. Over the ensuing ten days, the dog recovers from the procedure and continues living a healthy life.

Since its Prelinger Archives release, the film has provoked a lot of controversy, a large part being over whether or not the film is real. For example, at one point, the dog turns his head, which would be impossible if the head was cut where the video claims it was.