Excerpt from https://archive.org/details/TheQuestionOfCriminals
"The head of Menesclou has been, on the part of Professor Sappey, the object of an experiment not previously attempted before on man, and consisted of trying to restore the life and thought of a cut-off head, by the injection of blood. The head was not reconnected to Menesclou because, as a consequence of administrative formalities, five hours had elapsed between the execution and the delivery of the subject's body to the laboratory, and the tissues had already lost a part of their properties.
The first person to conduct this type of interesting experiment was Brown-Sequard, who performed it upon a dog. Here is how this experiment has been related by him: "I decapitated a dog by taking care to make the division below the spot where the vertebral arteries penetrated their respective osseous canals. Ten minutes after the cessation of respiratory movements from the nostrils, lips and lower jaw, I fitted the four arterial gaps of the head with cannulas which were connected by rubber tubes to a copper cylinder through which, with the aid of a syringe, I injected oxygen-charged blood. In two or three minutes, after some faint disorderly movements, I saw visible movements of the eyes and muscles of the face that seemed to be directed by the will. I prolonged the experiment for another quarter of an hour, and during this entire period these movements, in appearance voluntary, continued to take place. After having discontinued the injection of blood, these movements ceased and were soon replaced by convulsions of the eyes and face, by respiratory movements of the nostrils, lips, and jaws, and then by the tremblings of agony. The pupil of the eye became dilated and then contracted like it does in ordinary death."
Recalling this strange experiment, Professor Vulpian expressed himself thusly: "If a physiologist attempted this experiment upon the head of an executed criminal, he might be witness to a great and terrible spectacle; he might restore to this head its cerebral functions; he might awaken in the eyes and facial muscles movements that with man are aroused by passions and thoughts, whose source is the brain."
This experiment, which enables one to restore at will a cadaver — simply by maneuvering a stopper — this thing so seemingly incorporeal, called the soul by the spiritualists, will surely prove to be most curious. Nothing will be easier than to set up, utilizing conventional signs, a regular conversation with this cut-off head. The experiment evidently could be prolonged for days or months, seeing that it will suffice to maintain a regular circulation of blood in the vessels of the brain by connecting these vessels in an uninterrupted fashion to those of an animal, upon whose body one perhaps might succeed in grafting the head. One could also vary the experiment in an interesting way by slowing down or accelerating the circulation, by adding to the blood different stimulating substances, such as tea, alcohol, etc, which are able to alter among living persons the mode of operation of the cerebral cells, etc."
"Soul" is probably connected to the brain and if the brain fumbles so does the "soul"
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