Preserving Bodies in a Deep Freeze: 50 Years Later
By Peter Gwynne, INSN Contributor | January 14, 2017 08:45am ET
MORE
Preserving Bodies in a Deep Freeze: 50 Years Later
Credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
(Inside Science) -- Early in the 1960s, a group of enthusiasts advanced the concept of freezing humans as soon as they die, in hopes of reviving them after the arrival of medical advances able to cure the conditions that killed them. The idea went into practice for the first time 50 years ago.
On Jan. 12, 1967, James Bedford, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of California, became the first person to be "cyropreserved." A small team of doctors and other enthusiasts froze him a few hours after he died from liver cancer that had spread to his lungs.
A few days later the team placed the body into an insulated container packed with dry ice. Later still, Bedford was immersed in liquid nitrogen in a large Dewar container. Fifteen years on, after a series of moves from one cryopreservation facility to another, his body found a home at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, where it still resides.
http://www.livescience.com/57510-preserving-bodies-deep-freeze-after-50-years.html
