Aschwin de Wolf continues to build up a fascinating library of work on cryonics and its history at Depressed Metabolism. The early cryonicists of the 1960s were the cultural ancestors of the transhumanist movement, and thus also of many present initiatives in other areas of the healthy life extension community. It was the transhumanist community that helped launch the Methuselah Foundation with their early generosity in donations and volunteerism, for example. One of these days I have to mock up an evolutionary diagram of branching arrows to show the creation and diversification of pro-life-extension communities from the 1950s to the present.

But back to cryonics: two new articles at Depressed Metabolism caught my eye, both looking at the early days.

A Freezing Before Bedford's

James Bedford’s freezing in January 1967 is usually regarded as the first true cryonic suspension, done immediately after legal death under controlled conditions which, though primitive by today’s standards, may have opened the possibility of eventual reanimation. Yet there was an earlier freezing that, while more problematic from the standpoint of viability, was nonetheless important in the beginning cryonics movement.

Historical Steps Toward the Scientific Conquest of Death

In December 1963 the Life Extension Society was founded in Washington, D.C., with Cooper as president, to promote the freezing idea. The September 1965 issue of the LES periodical Freeze-Wait-Reanimate carried stirring headlines: ASTOUNDING ADVANCE IN ANIMAL BRAIN FREEZING AND RECOVERY …. Dr. Isamu Suda and colleagues, at Kobe University in Japan, had detected electrical activity in a cat brain that had been frozen to -20 C ( 4 F) for more than six months and then restored to body temperature. The cat had been anesthetized and the brain removed. The blood was replaced with a protective solution of glycerol prior to freezing; the glycerol was again replaced with blood on rewarming. Not only did the brain revive and resume activity, but the brain wave pattern did not appear to differ greatly from that of a live control. Here, then, was dramatic evidence that cryonics might work, especially if possible future advances in repair techniques were taken into account.

As we continue in our endeavors to engineer the sort of future we'd like to live in, I think it behooves us to look back at past generations of advocates, activists, and entrepreneurs who had the same goal in mind. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat its low points, and there is much to be learned from a survey of the healthy life extension communities of the past.

Posted by Reason