Robert J. White

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For other people named Robert White, see Robert White (disambiguation).
Robert J. White
Born
Robert Joseph White

(1926-01-21)January 21, 1926
Duluth, Minnesota, U.S.
DiedSeptember 16, 2010(2010-09-16) (aged 84)
Geneva Township, Ashtabula County, Ohio, U.S.
EducationUniversity of St. Thomas (B.S., 1951)
Harvard Medical School (M.D., 1953)
University of Minnesota (PhD, Neurosurgery, 1962)
OccupationNeurosurgeon

Robert Joseph White (January 21, 1926 – September 16, 2010) was an American

neurosurgeon best known for his head transplants
on living monkeys.

Biography

White was raised in

high school when his biology teacher admired his dissection of a frog cranium and told White that he should become a brain surgeon.[2]

White began his undergraduate studies at the

Peter Bent Brigham Hospital while completing his surgical internship and residency. A devout Roman Catholic, Dr. White was a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He attended mass regularly and prayed before performing surgeries.[1]

Throughout his career, White performed over 10,000 surgical operations and authored more than 900 publications on clinical neurosurgery, medical ethics and health care.

honorary doctorates from John Carroll University (Doctor of Science, 1979), Cleveland State University (Doctor of Science, 1980), Walsh University (Doctor of Humane Letters, 1996) and the University of St. Thomas (Doctor of Sciences, 1998).[4] White received invitations worldwide to speak, lecture and share his medical expertise. He was a consultant to the Burdenko Institute of Neurosurgery in Moscow and was the only foreign member of both Russian and Ukrainian Academies of Medical Science. He lectured extensively in the U.S., Russia, China and Europe.[3] White also became an adviser to Pope John Paul II on medical ethics. He established the Vatican's Commission on Biomedical Ethics in 1981 after his appointment to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Under White's leadership, the Commission influenced the church's stance on brain death and in vitro fertilization.[1][3]

He nicknamed himself Humble Bob.[5]: 4  White founded Metro's neurosurgery department. Many people know him for being the leading target for protesters. A PETA activist went as far as to call him "Dr. Butcher" and described his experiments as "epitomizing the crude, cruel vivisection industry."[6] For 40 years, White was a neurological surgery professor at Case Western Reserve University medical school, a well-liked teacher and an acclaimed surgeon.[1][3] He was one of the best known neurosurgeons in the United States, notably for his head transplant experiments on rhesus monkeys.[citation needed] White died at his home in Geneva, Ohio, on September 16, 2010, at age 84 after suffering from diabetes and prostate cancer.[1]

Research

Further information: Head transplant

In 1970, after a long series of preliminary experiments, White performed a

spine at the neck, the subjects were paralyzed from the neck down. After the surgery, because the cranial nerves within the brain were still intact and nourished by the circulatory system from the new body, the monkey could still hear, smell, taste, eat and follow objects with its eyes.[7]

Ultimately, immune rejection caused the monkey to die after nine days.[8] Dr. Jerry Silver, an expert in regrowing severed nerves, called White's experiments on monkeys, "fairly barbaric."[6]

During the 1990s, White planned to perform the same operation on humans and practiced on corpses at a mortuary. He hoped he could do head transplant surgery on the physicist Stephen Hawking and the actor Christopher Reeve.[8] The continuation of White's work in head transplantation research and application has been discussed recently in the neurosurgical literature by Dr. Canavero;[9] the feasibility of spinal cord reconstruction and cephalo-spinal linkage in humans received support in 2014 from a German study.[10]

References

  1. ^
    Cleveland.com
    . Retrieved February 4, 2011.
  2. ^ Feinberg, David (April 2, 2009). "Chilled Monkey Brains". Motherboard. Vice Media. Retrieved February 24, 2024.
  3. ^
    MetroHealth. Archived from the original
    on May 2, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
  4. OCLC 751144907
    .
  5. ISBN 9781982113827
    .
  6. ^ a b Bennett, Carla (August 26, 1995). "Letter to the editor: Cruel and Unneeded". People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. The New York Times. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. p. 18. Retrieved April 26, 2015.
  7. ^ Mims, Christopher (July 1, 2013). "First-Ever Human Head Transplant is now possible, says Neuroscientist". Quartz. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  8. ^
    S2CID 5254407. Archived from the original
    on February 28, 2015. Retrieved January 20, 2015. (As reproduced at author's personal webpage)
  9. PMID 24244881
    .
  10. S2CID 22390960
    .

Sources


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_J._White&oldid=1210372712"