CHICKEN HEART
[RADIO-SCRIPT]
[“Science Finds that Our Bones Die Last of All.” The American Weekly (March 27, 1927).] “On
January 14, 1912, only
about fifteen years ago, Dr. Alexis Carrel,
of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical
Research, cut out with a tiny knife
a small bit of the heart of a young chick,
recently killed. This bit of tissue he
transferred to a warmed culture solution
containing chemicals put together to reproduce
as nearly as might be possible,
the nutrient value of the blood of the living
bird. In Dr. Carrel's laboratory in
New York City that fifteen-year-old bit
of chicken heart is still alive, and lusty.
Motion pictures were made a year or so
ago, showing its growth and life. Many
scientific societies throughout the world
have seen these motion pictures. Not a
few of the world's scientific men have
seen the actual growing cells themselves
in Dr. Carrel's incubator.
The parent chick has been dead for
fifteen years. Even if the animal had
been allowed to live after giving up its
bit of heart tissue to science, it would
have passed away naturally long ago, for
chickens do not usually live to be within
si^ht of the fifteen-year mark. Meantime,
the bit of heart in the solution has been
not only living but growing.
It doubles its size, Dr. Carrel reports,
every day. It must be trimmed at Frequent
intervals in order to keep it within
a manageable size. So far as any one can
predict, that bit of chicken heart, will
continue to grow forever, if Dr. Carrel
and his successors continue to give it the
warmth and care and nutrient solution
which it needs. There is no reason to
doubt that it cnn bo immortal.
[“Immortal Flesh.” Massillon Evening Independent (January 21, 1933).]
Strange thoughts are aroused by that piece of
chicken heart which Dr. Alexis Carrel of the
Rockefeller Institute cut from an embryo 21
years ago and placed in a solution which provided
nourishment. The solution was kept fresh,
iand the. bit of muscle grew. It grew so steadily
that before long the scientist had to trim it to
' keep it from outgrowing its containing vessel.
It has been trimmed hundreds of times since;
'otherwise it might have outgrown the laboratory.
An inspection the other day showed it as healthy
as ever.
The tiny heart from which the specimen was
cut had started to beat when the operation was
performed. The infinitesimal bit of flesh cut
from it continued its contracting movement. It
has been contracting regularly ever since, just
as it would if it had remained a part of the living1
chicken. But the chicken itself would have
died long since. The sample cut fro:n it, scientists
say, could live forever if its nourishment
were continued.
Why this apparent immortality for a part of
a living organism when the whole is mortal?
Dr. Carrel has concluded that the cause lies in
the brain. All the other cells and tissues of the
body, it seems, can multiply and replace themselves
except those of the brain. This as a price
we pay for brains.
In a way, however, all flesh is immortal. If,
as many evolutionists think, all life on earth has
developed from one primordial cell, or a few such
cells, then the life of those cells has continued,
through millions of bodies,' enduring, growing
and differentiating for perhaps a billion years
[Helena Independent-Record, October 2, 1946—“Famed Chicken Heart Dies After Long, Artificial
Existence”] “The Herald Tribune says that Dr. Alexis Carrel’s sliver of embryonic chicken heart
tissue is dead at the age of 34.
“Doctor Carrel began his experiment January 17, 1912, at the Rockefeller Institute, by placing a
piece of heart in a test tube and feeding it chicken plasma and chicken embryo extract to prove
that tissue could be kept alive artificially. Every 48 hours the tissue doubled in size and every
week it had to be pruned, washed and transplanted to a new culture medium but Doctor Carrel
was able to make his point at the end of a year or so, the Herald Tribune says.
“In 1940, Doctor Carrel put responsibility for its sustenance on Dr. Albert H. Eberling, at the
Lederle laboratories, Pearl River, N. Y., who nurtured the heart until May of this year when he
retired and the heart, according to the Herald Tribune, was discarded.”
The “chicken heart” was given a new lease on life in the Sixties when it became a staple of Bill
Cosby’s stand-up routines.
[Program information]
ORIGINATION: Various.
DURATION: Various.
PERSONNEL: Arch Oboler (scriptwriter; director—1943).
EXTANT RECORDINGS: None.
[NOTE: A ten-minute condensation exists as part of an LP record released by Oboler in 1964
entitled Drop Dead!. Another performance of this condensed version also circulates among
collectors, apparently from the same source that created the ersatz Hermit’s Cave episode “Dark
House.”]
[Program log]
LIGHTS OUT (WMAQ, CHICAGO)
[Wednesday—11:30 PM-12:00 MIDNIGHT]
March 10, 1937 “Chicken Heart”
[“…The story originates from the fact that a bit of tissue from a chicken
heart at the Rockefeller Institute in New York has for years been rapidly
growing. In the drama the heart grows at a progressively increasing rate
until the very existence of humanity is threatened by this great throbbing
mass of flesh…”]
February 23, 1938 “Chicken Heart”
[“…the story of the heart of a chicken which had been given an
independent existence by a great scientist, will be repeated at listeners’
request…”]
LIGHTS OUT (KNX, HOLLYWOOD)
[Tuesday—8:00-8:30 PM (repeated 11:30-12:00)]
November 24, 1942 “Chicken Heart”
[“…based on experiments of Dr. Alexis Carrel, who kept a chicken heart
alive in a glass container…”]
[SAN ANTONIO LIGHT: “…The dead and unsung chicken whose famous
heart continues to beat in a glass case in New York’s most esteemed
research institute could not possibly have foreseen that some day it
would be the inspiration for a ‘Lights Out’ tale. There, in its lonely case,
the heart, minus the chicken that originally housed it, has been quietly
pulsating these last two decades, astounding scientists and laymen alike,
minding its own business, until Arch Oboler decided to make a radio
script out of it…”]
THE GOTHAM RADIO PLAYERS (WBAI, NEW YORK)
[
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