Robert Cornish
Dr. Robert Cornish was a genius. He graduated from Berkeley at 18 and received his doctorate at 22. If he had applied his knowledge to a different subject, there’s a good chance he could have changed the world for the better. Unfortunately, he became obsessed with one idea that would dominate his career—reanimation.
His status at Berkeley meant that he could return as a researcher and undertake his studies relatively uninterrupted throughout the 1930s. Cornish believed that a body that had not sustained too much organ damage could be reanimated using a seesaw-like machine that would move the body and restart blood circulation when helped by a healthy dose of anticoagulants.
The weird part was that Cornish succeeded in reanimating two dogs. His efforts were even turned into a 1935 movie where Cornish had a cameo.
Then came his real challenge—reanimating a human. His biggest obstacle was finding a test subject. For years, he petitioned prisons to let him use recently executed criminals. In 1948, Cornish finally found his man. A child killer named Thomas McMonigle was willing to use the “Cornish teeter” after being executed, and San Quentin was apparently willing to let him.
However, there was one problem that Cornish couldn’t overcome: He needed the body right after execution, but procedure dictated that it must remain in San Quentin’s custody for several hours before being released. Cornish never succeeded in performing his experiment on a human test subject.
In case you are interested, the name of the movie was Life Returns and was made in 1935.There is a clip on YouTube.
Coffee in the kitchen once again.
