Word: electroencephalogram
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...most cases the damage is confined to one side of the brain. This is fortunate, because surgery is impossible if both sides are damaged. In operable cases, the damaged side of the brain produces abnormal electrical activity, making the electroencephalogram (brainwave tracing) look like one of the Alps' more jagged ranges. Worse, the damaged side interferes electrically with the undamaged side and sets off abnormal activity there. It does not matter which side of the brain is dominant*: damage on either side will involve both hemispheres and eventually produce crippling disabilities...
...their own minds. But there remained some sticking points in medical ethics. How to determine the death of the donor? On three criteria there was general agreement: The patient must no longer have any natural heartbeat, or respiration, or reflexes. Beyond that, he must have a "flat" electroencephalogram-no "brain wave" activity-but for how long? After the closed sessions in Cape Town, all that Spokesman Cooley could say was: "We have reached some agreement as to the nature of brain death...
Father Damien had no problems regarding the donor. "The donor," he wrote, "is in no way 'sacrificed' by the doctors. He has already been in a closed circuit [heart-lung machine] for days, and is therefore already dead (flat electroencephalogram, etc.). His survival is artificial. So, no problem...
French surgeons had to wait for months-not only for a suitable donor and recipient but also for their government to decide when a dead man is dead. At last the Cabinet ruled that a donor is dead when his electroencephalogram (brainwave recording) has shown no activity and he has had no reflexes for several hours. Scarcely was this decision taken when Donor Michel Gyppaz, 23, died of head injuries at Paris' ancient, crumbling Hopital de la Pitie...
When did Denise Darvall die? Explains Dr. Marius Barnard, 40, younger brother of Christiaan and his right-hand assistant during surgery: "I know in some places they consider the patient dead when the electroencephalogram shows no more brain function. We are on the conservative side, and consider a patient dead when the heart is no longer working, the lungs are no longer working, and there are no longer any complexes...