Dr. White in the 1970s.

There is tons more with Dr. White this month on

Motherboard

on VBS.TV.

Through constant icing, brain tissue is preserved during surgery, which gives surgeons hours to dig inside people’s heads

The first successfully isolated brain was kept alive by connecting it to a “donor animal,” aka a drugged-up monkey.

Rather than remove the brain and risk death, Dr. White posited lopping off the whole head and transplanting it.

The first successful monkey-head transplant lasted only two days before the animal died. Future transplants extended the life span but never solved the issue of paralysis following the severed spinal cord.

An actual monkey brain, isolated by use of mechanical circulation, before it withers and dies.

Images courtesy of Dr. White