More Cryonics History From Depressed Metabolism

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...