Cryonics 1962 – Freezing the Body

In 1773, the American statesman Benjamin Franklin regretfully noted that, because he lived in “a century in which science was not very advanced and was still in its infancy,” he had “a very ardent desire to see and observe the state of America a hundred years later.” 

If Franklin were alive today, he would probably use cryonics facilities. In these facilities, people are preserved after being declared legally dead by replacing their blood with protective fluids and cooling their bodies for long-term storage. These cryoprotectants reduce the formation of ice crystals that could damage tissues. Cryonicists hope that future technology will be advanced enough to revive such patients and cure the diseases they suffered from. If our thoughts depend primarily on the structure of the brain, then perhaps brains made from other materials, or even simulated in software, could also think.

Although revival through cryonics seems very difficult, remember that frozen embryos are routinely revived to produce healthy children. The modern era of cryonics was encouraged by the 1962 publication of the writer Robert Ettinger's book The Prospect of Immorality, which discussed the possibility of preserving people. 

Today, liquid nitrogen is used to store bodies at temperatures of around –320 °F (–196 °C). Here is a question for religious readers: if scientists could freeze your disembodied brain and revive it a century later, would you go to the afterlife during the interval when there was no brain activity?

In 2006, the surgeon Hasan Alam placed pigs in a state of suspended animation—the cold pigs had no pulse, no blood and no electrical activity in their brains, and their tissues were not consuming oxygen. A few hours later, Alam pumped warm blood into the animals, and they came back to life. Alam then said:

“When the heartbeat starts and the blood begins pumping, there you have another animal back from the other side... Technically, we could do it in humans too.”

About the Article Image: This dewar tank can contain four whole-body patients and six neuropatients (heads only) immersed in liquid nitrogen at -196 °C. This insulated tank consumes no electrical power.

Historical Figures Mentioned in the Article: Robert Chester Wilson Ettinger (1918–2011)

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