Robert J. White
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Robert J. White (born 1925) is a United States surgeon, best known for his successful head transplants on monkeys.
White was raised in Duluth, Minnesota by his mother and an aunt. His father died fighting in World War II.
In the 1970s, after a long series of controversial experiments, White performed a successful transplant of one monkey head onto the body of another monkey, and the transplanted head lasted for several days after the procedure. These operations were continued and perfected to the point where they the transplanted head could, in theory, were it not euthanized for humane purposes, survive indefinitely on its new body. The problem with this operation is that since no one currently knows how to repair nerve damage such as would arise when the spinal cord is severed during the head transplant process the recipient will become paralyzed from the neck down.
The transplanted heads can see, think, feel, and taste and in short can function in all the ways that they could when attached to their original body, they simply cannot control their new one. Therefore, until the repair of nerves can be perfected, this procedure is almost useless. The importance of head transplants is that if performed in humans they have the potential to save lives from almost any disease. Anything that afflicts the non-head regions of the body, be it otherwise inoperable non-brain cancer, multiple organ failure, heart disease, diabetes, etc will be removed if the head is transplanted to a non-afflicted body. If one is paralyzed already and has these illnesses, then nothing much would really change when the head is transplanted. If one is not paralyzed, then one would have to decide whether to live paralyzed until a cure for paralysis can be developed, or to die of one's affliction. The bodies could be obtained through organ doners as is already the case with heart, lung, and kidney transplants. See the articles titled "whole-body transplant" and "head transplant" for more information.
White has also pioneered now widely-accepted spinal cord and brain cooling techniques, which now allow for therapeutic procedures not previously possible. For 40 years, he was a neurological surgery professor for Case Western Reserve University medical school, but is now retired.
White also served as an advisor to Pope John Paul II on medical ethics[1].
