Many times humans dream of immortality or of bringing a loved one back to life.
In the 1930s, the American scientist
Robert Cornish
invented a system for raising the dead.
The man believed that, through science, he would be able to bring dead people back to life.
Robert began his auspicious experiment on animals.
Five dogs were part of their studies.
Precisely, he named all the animals after Lazarus, a character from the Bible who was resurrected thanks to Jesus.
Cornish
managed to test his theory with some of these canines
.
But he had something much bigger in mind and so he started investigating him, he wanted to revive a criminal sentenced to death.
Will he have succeeded?
With the University of Berkley, he participated in the Lázaro project.
His life devoted to death
Robert E. Cornish was born on December 21, 1903 in
California, United States
.
He possessed an above average mind, clearly destined to make history in science.
He finished his high school studies at the young age of 15 and was described as a child prodigy who was interested in science.
Robert graduated with honors in Biology from UC Berkeley three years later, and by 22 had already received a Ph.D.
Due to his fame as an up-and-comer in the world of science, Dr. Cornish was quickly hired as a research scientist at Berkley Laboratories.
There he was able to develop in various branches and conceive experiments that were not entirely orthodox, such as the one that allowed reading newspapers underwater through the use of special glasses.
Robert began working on somewhat bizarre science projects.
Little by little he became a highly respected person in the research community.
In 1931 he began the biggest and most disturbing experiment of his:
raising the dead
.
The Lazarus Project
Dr. Cornish became obsessed with one word: resurrection.
Because he was a respected scientist, he was listened to and the big laboratories lent him their facilities to develop his greatest scientific proposal.
His first experiments were carried out with three dogs.
He first injected them with ether, a liquid used in medicine as an anesthetic, according to the specialized portal Britannica.
In this way, the animals died clinically and Robert could put his hopeful theory into action.
The biologist believed that by repeatedly swinging the dead body up and down (like a swing) and applying blood, anticoagulants, and oxygen, he could reactivate the dead body's systems.
The first three attempts were unsuccessful, but
the last two dogs revived and survived for months
.
Of course, they revived with significant brain damage, severe nervous disorders, unbalanced motor skills and blindness.
The news in the big media
"Robert E. Cornish, a California biologist who surprised the scientific community by reviving a clinically dead dog, recently repeated the success of his original experiment with even more promising results," read the
New York Times
in 1935.
“When six minutes had elapsed since the last heartbeat, young Dr. Robert E. Cornish fitted Lazarus II to a seesaw device called a teeterboard.
There he opened one of the veins in the terrier's thigh to apply a saline solution saturated with oxygen and containing adrenaline and stimulants for the heart, heparin liver extract and a little bit of canine blood that had been fibrin (coagulant substance). who retired..."
"The stimulant solution was plunged into a glass measurer, as it seeped into the body through five feet of rubber tubing, it began to rise in slow pulsations and Lazarus II gasped for moments. His legs trembled. His heart It began to beat, weakly at first, then like a triphammer.
Lázaro II was alive",
the New York newspaper reported in its chronicle.
Newspapers took note of the ambitious project.
"A second dog is resurrected", titled the scientific magazine
Modern Mechanix
at the time . According to the data shared in that publication, he had managed to bring the animals back from death in about an hour and a half.
the damned
His experiment created quite a stir and the university canceled the project, as they did not tolerate his treatment of the dogs he was experimenting on.
However, this did not stop Cornish, who continued his investigation in his house, this time with pigs instead of dogs given their similarity to humans.
A decade later, Dr. Cornish wanted to go for something else.
The man
intended to bring the methods of his resurrection with a human being
.
In 1947 he had already found a volunteer:
Thomas McMonigle
, a murderer of children imprisoned in the San Quentin prison, who had offered his body to be revived after he had been sentenced to death.
He (McMonigle) feels that if this is possible, the successful method could be used to save the lives of countless innocent people who could die (in prison) permanently, by drowning, electric shock or suffocation," Cornish said in quoted statements. by the
Daily News
Medium .
Robert had hopes that the prison authorities would grant him permission to handle the criminal's body once it was subjected to the gas chamber.
But it was not like that.
The refusal was given the possibility that Cornish would succeed and allow McMonigle not only to be resurrected, but to go free having already served his sentence.
California state authorities denied the request.
Robert with his team in the resuscitation tests.
Eventually, due to media pressure, Cornish resigned from his project because some colleagues and organizations had criticized him.
Little by little, his obsession led him to be in the eye of the hurricane of criticism from many colleagues.
Robert,
did you fail or did you not let them succeed?
What is certain is that Cornish withdrew from the project and focused his prodigious brain on traditional science.
On March 6, 1963 he died of natural causes.
