Phenomenon of Demikhov. "Transplantation of vital organs in experiment" (1960). Homoplastic organ transplantation: of an isolated heart, isolated lung, kidney, head, half of the trunk, and the whole trunk
The article (the third one of five) presents the analysis of the final part of the third chapter on homoplastic organ transplantation from V.P. Demikhov's monograph "Transplantation of vital organs in experiment" (MedGIz Publ., Moscow, 1960). The article covers the data presented by V.P. Demikhov on his creating the following animal models: of the isolated heart and lung, kidneys, head, half of the trunk, and the whole trunk. The isolated heart models where the heart was positioned in place of the biological one were not successful. The longest period of the dog-recipient survival was 15 hours. The dogs with transplanted lobes of the lung survived up to 6 days (there are no evidence of a whole lung transplant in the book); animal-recipients of kidneys survived up to 19 days. V.P. Demikhov considered that the graft deaths might be caused by the biological tissue incompatibility between the donor and recipient, and he stressed the need for its suppression and the importance of choosing the donor and recipient compatible by their blood group for successful homoplastic transplantation. By transplanting the puppies' heads onto the cervical vessels of the dogs, starting the experiments from 1954, V.P. Demikhov attempted to prove the role of the central nervous system in the organ engraftment, which was one of the targets in those experiments. The integration of two bodies, combining their vascular systems, and mixing the blood had two goals: to create the conditions for overcoming the transplantation immunity and to make an animal model of organ transplant in combination with retaining the organ neurohumoral links. The model of the cross circulation also allowed the formulation and implementation of the organ bank concept in the experiment.