Fascinating footage from the 1960s has shed light on the formative years of cryopreservation, which could one day see humans return from the dead.
The short film shows the early work of the Cryonic Society in Phoenix, Arizona, as a team of scientists piece together ground-breaking preservation equipment.
Cryonics has long been touted as a route to life after death or immortality, and the video’s narrator suggests ‘the freezing of biological matter is the answer’.
A model is seen giving a demonstration of how one man has already been frozen as she is placed in a long, metal cylinder and wrapped head-to-toe in tin foil.
The video, first aired in 1967, shows both the interior and exterior of a lab operated by the Cryocare Equipment Corporation.
Now defunct, the firm worked closely with the California-based Cryonics Society, a nonprofit organisation that still supports and promotes cryonics research today.
‘The possibility of life after death is explored in Phoenix, Arizona, by the Cryonic Society,’ the video’s narrator says.
‘They believe that cryobiology, the freezing of biological matter, is the answer. They propose freezing bodies in cold storage capsules, scientists are mostly sceptical.
‘A model demonstrates how one person, a California man who died of cancer, has already been frozen.
‘A freezing liquid replaces the blood supply, and the subject is wrapped in aluminium foil and placed in a capsule at 220 degrees below zero centigrade.’
A model is seen giving a demonstration of how one man has already been frozen as she is placed in a long metal cylinder and wrapped head-to-toe in tin foil
The video, first aired in 1967, shows both the interior and exterior of a lab operated by the Cryocare Corporation
Fascinating footage from the 1960s has shed light on the formative years of cryopreservation, which could one day see humans return from the dead. The clip shows work at a laboratory run by the California-based Cryonics Society
The concept of Cryonics was introduced in 1962 by, Robert Ettinger, Founder of the Cryonics Institute in a book titled ‘The Prospect of Immortality’.
The process involves cooling a recently deceased person to liquid nitrogen temperatures in order to keep the body preserved indefinitely.
While it is hoped that resuscitation and restoration to full health may be possible in the future, cryopreservation of humans is not reversible with present technology.
‘Cryonicists’ hope that medical advances will someday allow for the revival of cryopreserved people.
Cryonics involves cooling a recently deceased person to liquid nitrogen temperatures in order to keep the body preserved indefinitely. Pictured is a scientist recorded at the Cryocare Corporation laboratory in the archive footage
While it is hoped that resuscitation and restoration to full health may be possible in the future, cryopreservation of humans is not reversible with present technology. Pictured is a scientist wrapping tinfoil around a cryopreservation chamber in the footage
‘Cryonicists’ hope that medical advances will someday allow for the revival of cryopreserved people. At least 250 bodies have been cryopreserved in the United States alone
Attitudes of mainstream scientists have not changed much in over fifty years since the video was broadcast, with many remaining sceptical about the practice.
Around 350 people worldwide have had their corpse preserved at low temperatures immediately after death in the hope it can be revived in the future.
The Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, the world’s largest cryogenics storage facility, has frozen 160 patients at its headquarters.
The firm claims it has almost 2,000 people signed up to be frozen after they die.
Pictured is a scientist wrapping a model with tin foil to show how one of the earliest bodies to be cryopreserved was prepared for freezing. One person of note who is cryopreserved is Ted Williams, who played for the Boston Red Sox in Major League Baseball
James Bedford (whose body is pictured on the white table) was the world’s first cryopreserved human being. He had been suffering from kidney cancer that had metastasised to his lungs
Dr Bedford was transferred from his original ‘cryocapsule’ to a more modern container in 1991. He now lies suspended in liquid nitrogen in a vault in Scottsdale, Arizona
The first person to undergo cryogenic freezing was Dr James Bedford, 72, a psychology lecturer who was preserved on 12 January, 1967.
He had been suffering from kidney cancer that had metastasised to his lungs, and was frozen free of charge thanks to an offer from the Life Extension Society, the world’s first cryonics organisation.
It advertised: ‘LES offers to freeze free of charge the first person desirous and in need of cryogenic suspension.’
After freezing his body with dimethyl sulfoxide, a chemical that was thought to help preserve the organs and tissues, experts placed his body in liquid nitrogen.
Dr Bedford now lies suspended in liquid nitrogen in a vault in Scottsdale, Arizona.
In 2016, a 14-year-old British teenager with terminal cancer won a landmark court case to have her corpse cryogenically frozen.
She hoped that she could be woken up when scientists eventually find a cure for the disease, and won her court case days before she died.
The girl’s divorced parents had disagreed over whether her wish to be frozen should be granted, so the teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, asked a High Court judge to intervene.
After Mr Justice Peter Jackson ruled in her favour, her body was frozen and taken to a storage facility in Detroit.
She is one of just 10 Britons to have been cryogenically preserved, and remains the only British child to undergo the procedure.
CRYONICS: THE FACTS
WHAT IS CRYONICS?
The deep freezing of a body to -196°C (-321°F).
Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged.
The hope is that medical science will advance enough to bring the patient back to life.
Two main US organisations carry out cryonics in the US: Alcor, in Arizona, and the Cryonics Institute, in Michigan.
Russian firm KrioRus is one of two facilities outside the US to offer the service, alongside Alcor’s European laboratory in Portugal.
HOW IS IT MEANT TO WORK?
The process can only take place once the body has been declared legally dead.
Ideally, it begins within two minutes of the heart stopping and no more than 15.
The body must be packed in ice and injected with chemicals to reduce blood clotting.
At the cryonics facility, it is cooled to just above 0°C and the blood is replaced with a solution to preserve organs.
Cryonpreservation is the deep freezing of a body to – 196°C (-321°F). Anti-freeze compounds are injected into the corpse to stop cells being damaged
The body is injected with another solution to stop ice crystals forming in organs and tissues, then cooled to -130°C.
The final step is to place the body into a container which is lowered into a tank of liquid nitrogen at -196°C.
WHAT’S THE CHANCE OF SUCCESS?
Many experts say there is none.
Organs such as the heart and kidneys have never been successfully frozen and thawed.
It is even less likely a whole body, and the brain, could be without irreversible damage.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
Charges at the Cryonics Institute start at around £28,000 ($35,000) to ‘members’ for whole-body cryopreservation.
Rival group Alcor charges £161,000 ($200,000) while KrioRus’ procedure will set you back £29,200 ($37,600).
HOW LONG BEFORE PEOPLE CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE?
Cryonics organisations claim it could be decades or even centuries.
However, medical experts say once cells are damaged during freezing and turned to ‘mush’ they cannot be converted back to living tissue, any more than you can turn a scrambled egg back into a raw egg.