Robert Joseph White (January 21, 1926 – September 16, 2010) was an American
neurosurgeon
Neurosurgery or neurological surgery, known in common parlance as brain surgery, is the medical specialty concerned with the surgical treatment of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spinal cord and per ...
best known for his
head transplant
A head transplant is an experimental surgical operation involving the grafting of one organism's head onto the body of another. In many experiments, the recipient's head has not been removed, but in others it has been. Experimentation in animals ...
s on living monkeys.
Biography
White was raised in
Duluth, Minnesota by his mother and an aunt. His father was killed in combat while serving in the
Pacific theater during
World War II.
White stated in a 2009 Motherboard interview that his interest in the human brain started in
high school when his
biology
Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
teacher admired his dissection of a frog cranium and told White that he should become a brain surgeon.
White began his undergraduate studies at the
University of St. Thomas before entering the
University of Minnesota Medical School
The University of Minnesota Medical School is the medical school of the University of Minnesota. It is a combination of two campuses situated in Minneapolis and Duluth, Minnesota.
The University of Minnesota Medical School is also part of one of ...
in 1949; he later transferred to
Harvard Medical School in 1951, where he earned his medical degree ''
cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
'' in 1953.
White had ten children with his wife, Patricia Murray, a nurse he met at
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
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences ( it, Pontificia accademia delle scienze, la, Pontificia Academia Scientiarum) is a scientific academy of the Vatican City, established in 1936 by Pope Pius XI. Its aim is to promote the progress of the mat ...
. He attended mass regularly and prayed before performing surgeries.
Throughout his career, White performed over 10,000 surgical operations and authored more than 900 publications on clinical neurosurgery, medical ethics and health care.
[ He received ]honorary doctorates
An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...
from John Carroll University
John Carroll University is a private Jesuit university in University Heights, Ohio. It is primarily an undergraduate, liberal arts institution accompanied by the John M. and Mary Jo Boler College of Business. John Carroll has an enrollment of 3, ...
(Doctor of Science, 1979), Cleveland State University
Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. ...
(Doctor of Science, 1980), Walsh University
Walsh University is a private Roman Catholic university in North Canton, Ohio. It enrolls approximately 2,700 students and was founded in 1960 by the Brothers of Christian Instruction as a liberal arts college. Walsh College became Walsh Univers ...
(Doctor of Humane Letters, 1996) and the University of St. Thomas (Doctor of Sciences, 1998). 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. 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.
He nicknamed himself Humble Bob. 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." For 40 years, White was a neurological surgery professor at Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location i ...
medical school, a well-liked teacher and an acclaimed surgeon. He was one of the best known neurosurgeons in the United States, notably for his head transplant experiments on rhesus monkeys.[[National Geographic video http://lhommeunearmededestructionmassive.e-monsite.com/pages/destruction-massive/des-animaux/la-vivisection-tests-sur-les-animaux/videos/robert-j-white-le-vrai-frankenstein.html]] White died at his home in Geneva, Ohio on September 16, 2010 at age 84 after suffering from diabetes and prostate cancer.
Research
In 1970, after a long series of preliminary experiments, White performed a transplant of one monkey head onto the body of another monkey. Because the surgery included severing the spine
Spine or spinal may refer to:
Science Biology
* Vertebral column, also known as the backbone
* Dendritic spine, a small membranous protrusion from a neuron's dendrite
* Thorns, spines, and prickles, needle-like structures in plants
* Spine (zoolo ...
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.
Ultimately, immune rejection caused the monkey to die after nine days. Dr. Jerry Silver
Jerry Silver is an American neuroscientist and professor in the Department of Neurosciences at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He is known for his research using rat models to develop treatments for spinal cord injuries. He beca ...
, an expert in regrowing severed nerves, called White's experiments on monkeys, "fairly barbaric."
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
Christopher D'Olier Reeve (September 25, 1952 – October 10, 2004) was an American actor, best known for playing the title character in the film ''Superman (1978 film), Superman'' (1978) and three sequels.
Born in New York City and raised in P ...
. The continuation of White's work in head transplantation research and application has been discussed recently in the neurosurgical literature by Dr. Canavero; the feasibility of spinal cord reconstruction and cephalo-spinal linkage in humans received support in 2014 from a German study.
References
Further reading
*
Sources
*
The Frankenstein Factor
*
*Journalist and author Oriana Fallaci wrote "The Dead Body and the Living Brain" (''Look'', 26, 1967, pgs 99–105) based on White's experimentation on primates; in turn, this was included in the 2010 book edited by philosopher Tom Regan
Tom Regan (; November 28, 1938 – February 17, 2017) was an American philosopher who specialized in animal rights theory. He was professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina State University, where he had taught from 1967 until his reti ...
and theologian Andrew Linzey
Andrew Linzey (born 2 February 1952) is an English Anglican priest, theologian, and prominent figure in Christian vegetarianism. He is a member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Oxford, and held the world's first academic post in Eth ...
, ''Other Nations: Animals in Modern Literature''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Robert J.
1926 births
2010 deaths
American neurosurgeons
Harvard Medical School alumni
Members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
People from Duluth, Minnesota
University of Minnesota Medical School alumni
Animal testing in the United States
Catholics from Minnesota
Physicians of Brigham and Women's Hospital