Can we really transplant a human soul?

By Dr DANNY PENMAN - More by this author » Last updated at 19:06pm on 9th April 2008

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The progress of medical science in the past 30 years has been so rapid
that yesterday's miracles are tomorrow's commonplace procedures.

So it has proved with heart transplants, which have become almost routine in hospitals around the world.

Yet every once in a while a story emerges which should cause us
all to sit up and take note that there is nothing "routine" or
"commonplace" about such complex operations.

The suggestion, highlighted again this week, that donor patients
could not only be acquiring the organs but also the memories - or even
the soul - of the donor is surely one such story.

This bizarre possibility was raised by the inexplicable case of
Sonny Graham - a seemingly happily married 69-year-old man living in
the U.S. state of Georgia. He shot himself without warning, having
shown no previous signs of unhappiness, let alone depression.

His friends described it as an act of passion, not of reason.

The case might have remained just an isolated tragedy were it
not for the fact that Sonny had received a transplanted heart from a
man who had also shot himself - in identical circumstances.

To make things even more intriguing, shortly after receiving the
heart transplant, Sonny tracked down the wife of the donor - and fell
instantly in love with her.

"When I first met her," Sonny told a local newspaper, "I just
stared. I felt like I had known her for years. I couldn't keep my eyes
off her."

He spoke of a deep and profound love for her. It was instant and
it was passionate. The kind of love where overwhelming passion seizes
control of the mind and banishes reason. They quickly wed.

The tragedy of Sonny Graham will, no doubt, be written off as
mere coincidence. After all, there is surely no conceivable way that
the memories, let alone the character of a donor, can be transplanted
along with their heart.

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Virtually every doctor and scientist will tell you the heart is a
mere pump. The seat of our mind, our consciousness, our very soul - if
such a thing exists - lies in the brain.

The heart's only control over our mind is whether or not it
sends it blood. Ever since William Harvey unravelled the mysteries of
the heart and circulatory system centuries ago, this fact has remained
beyond doubt.

Well, almost beyond doubt.

For a few brave scientists have started claiming that our
memories and characters are encoded not just in our brain, but
throughout our entire body.

Consciousness, they claim, is created by every living cell in the body acting in concert.

They argue, in effect, that our hearts, livers and every single
organ in the body stores our memories, drives our emotions and imbues
us with our own individual characters. Our whole body, they believe, is
the seat of the soul; not just the brain.

And if any of these organs should be transplanted into another
person, parts of these memories - perhaps even elements of the soul -
might also be transferred.

There are now more than 70 documented cases similar to Sonny's,
where transplant patients have taken on some of the personality traits
of the organ donors.

Professor Gary Schwartz and his co-workers at the University of
Arizona have documented numerous seemingly inexplicable experiences
similar to Sonny's. And every single one is a direct challenge to the
medical status quo.

In one celebrated case uncovered by Professor Schwartz's team,
an 18-year-old boy who wrote poetry, played music and composed songs
was killed in a car crash. A year after he died, his parents came
across a tape of a song he had written, entitled, Danny, My Heart Is
Yours.

In his haunting lyrics, the boy sang about how he felt destined
to die and donate his heart. After his death, his heart was
transplanted into an 18-year-old girl - named Danielle.

When the boy's parents met Danielle, they played some of his
music and she, despite never having heard the song before, knew the
words and was able to complete the lyrics.

Professor Schwartz also investigated the case of a 29-year-old
lesbian fast-food junkie who received the heart of a 19-year-old
vegetarian woman described as "man crazy".

After the transplant, she told her friends that meat now made
her sick, and that she no longer found women attractive. If fact,
shortly after the transplant she married a man.

In one equally inexplicable case, a middle-aged man developed a new-found love for classical music after a heart transplant.

It transpired that the 17-year-old donor had loved classical
music and played the violin. He had died in a drive-by shooting,
clutching a violin to his chest.

Nor are the effects of organ transplants restricted to hearts.
Kidneys also seem to carry some of the characteristics of their
original owners.

Take the case of Lynda Gammons from Weston, Lincolnshire, who donated one of her kidneys to her husband Ian.

Since the operation, Ian believes he has taken on aspects of his
wife's personality. He has developed a love of baking, shopping,
vacuuming and gardening. Prior to the transplant, he loathed all forms
of housework with a vengeance.

He has also adopted a dog - yet before his operation he was an avowed "cat man", unlike his wife who favoured dogs.

It's easy to dismiss such tales as hokum. But the Chinese authorities are certainly taking them seriously.

They have recently taken an interest in Professor Schwartz's
ideas and have begun a programme to monitor transplant patients. (As
many "donated" organs in China come from executed political prisoners,
a cynic might suggest that the authorities are worried about an
"epidemic" of political thought spreading via organ transplants.)

Many scientists will, of course, point out that tens of
thousands of organ transplants have now been carried out worldwide, so
you would expect to come across a few bizarre cases like Sonny
Graham's.

It is also hardly surprising that after a major
life-threatening operation such as a heart transplant, a patient may
undergo a profound alteration to their character. Who could remain
unchanged after staring death in the face?

The powerful drugs required as part of organ transplant
procedures can also cause major changes in behaviour. Put all these
together and it's no wonder that some patients leave hospital with a
drastically different outlook on life.

What is most surprising about these cases, though, is not that
some transplant patients emerge as different people after an operation,
but that the changes are so specific.

"It's a targeted personality change," says Professor Schwartz.
"If this is the result of drugs, or stress, or coincidence, none of
those would predict the specific patterns of information that would
match the donor."

If Professor Schwartz and his ilk are right, it
would destroy one of the foundation stones of modern biology. But then
again, modern biology has a guilty little secret: it has, as yet, no
viable theory to explain how we store memories and how we produce
consciousness.

In fact, scientists haven't even managed to define what exactly
consciousness is, let alone managed to pin down where it comes from and
where it is to be found within the body.

So maybe, just maybe, the poets, romantics and mystics
throughout the ages were right: the heart really is the seat of our
emotions and of our souls.

And if we can transplant hearts, then perhaps it's not so
fanciful to suggest that some part of the spirit goes with them. Who
knows - one day doctors may even be able to offer a "character
transplant".