Old sci-fi (pre-60's) brain implants [Academic Research Purposes]

[PaulMmn]

There is a 1953 movie, Donovan's Brain, based on a 1942 story by Curt Siodmak. It's a bit reversed from what you would think about implant technology. There are only a couple of wires, a few tubes, that connect to an old fish tank the naked brain is residing in. The communication is accomplished by wireless telepathy. The naked brain of the dead millionaire never loses it's greedy business ethics but it does change the personalities of the people around it that it seeks to control.

The Brain-In-A-Jar was the plot point of an Outer Limits episode, "The Brain of Colonel Barham." (I always remembered the name as Barros).

 

[dask]

"The Monster Of Lake LaMetrie", a short story by Wardon Allan Curtis, is about a doctor who transplants a human brain into the head of an Elasmosaurus. First published in the September 1899 issue of Pearson's Magazine it was later reprinted in Science Fiction By Gaslight edited by Sam Moskowitz, and just may be the ultimate brain implant story.

 

[Dave]

"The Monster Of Lake LaMetrie"

That is really early indeed.

Does the story, however, have any mechanical implants, or cause a change in personality that would meet the original posts question?

I've just had a thought that The Strange Case of Jekyll Hyde published 1886 would fit changing personality, but the dissociative identity disorder is brought about chemically.

I think we will struggle with the mechanical implant, cyborg, part because I think Manfred Clynes might have been the first to have ever written about it.

 

[dask]

That is really early indeed.

Does the story, however, have any mechanical implants, or cause a change in personality that would meet the original posts question?

I've just had a thought that The Strange Case of Jekyll Hyde published 1886 would fit changing personality, but the dissociative identity disorder is brought about chemically.

I think we will struggle with the mechanical implant, cyborg, part because I think Manfred Clynes might have been the first to have ever written about it.

Couple weeks after the surgery the Elasmosaurus starts communicating verbally with the doctor but about a year later reverts to being completely animal. No mechanical implants that I know of.