The Emergence of the Society of Immortals
In 1962, an American physicist promised people what they had dreamed of throughout human history - immortality. Professor Robert Ettinger from Highland Park College (Michigan, USA) wrote the book "The Prospect of Immortality," in which he reasoned that if a human body is frozen immediately after death, it will remain incorruptible for any length of time. Thus, as soon as humanity learns to resurrect people, a frozen client can be thawed and revived.
In 1963, Professor Ettinger and colleagues inspired by his idea founded the Life Extension Society in Washington, whose goal was to develop a technology for freezing and subsequently storing human bodies. Their enthusiasm proved so contagious that within a year Ettinger's book was reprinted with the support of science fiction writer and biochemist Isaac Asimov and became incredibly popular.
Since 1965, special institutes and societies dealing with cryonics were formed in Michigan, where Ettinger worked, as well as in California and New York. This word was proposed as the name for the "science studying immortality."
Finally, on January 12, 1967, the first "immortal" appeared on Earth. The California Cryonics Society placed into liquid nitrogen (at a temperature of minus 196 degrees) the body of psychology professor James Bedford from Los Angeles. Upon learning he was dying of lung cancer, he decided to become the first frozen person, in order to return to life when medicine conquers this deadly disease. Bedford's photo was printed on the cover of a limited edition of Life magazine - the printing presses were stopped halfway through the print run after news came of the Apollo 1 disaster during preparations for man's journey to the Moon. The cover of the main print run featured photos of the deceased astronauts.
Until 1979, cryonics institutes and societies successfully added 20 new members to the "club of immortals." Since ensuring the preservation of a frozen body cost enormous amounts of money, cryonics became increasingly popular among millionaires, who indeed began to view posthumous freezing as membership in an elite club. However, in 1979, a real catastrophe broke out.
The most reliable and popular pioneer of the industry, the California Cryonics Society, was forced to admit that nine bodies of its clients had decomposed due to failure to comply with storage technology. Partly to blame was the depletion of funds in the society's foundation. The fact is that at that time, the storage of bodies was carried out at the expense of relatives of the frozen, who, a few years after the heavy loss of their beloved millionaire, began to neglect his last will. The head of the California Cryonics Society stood trial.
For many years after this, cryonics could not recover from the consequences of the scandal; many original institutes and societies went bankrupt or reorganized, and their clients were thawed and buried. Of the bodies frozen before 1980, only the body of James Bedford has certainly survived to this day, which is located in the refrigerator of the largest cryonics center called the "Alcor Life Extension Foundation."
Today, the service of deep freezing after death is provided only in America, and there are only two large organizations in this market. The second after Alcor is the Cryonics Institute, which includes the Michigan Cryonics Society, once organized by Professor Ettinger. However, in many countries around the world there are societies of cryonics activists and even individual frozen bodies are stored. In total, the "club of immortals" currently has about 200 members (their exact number and names are a trade secret).
Enthusiast from France, Doctor Martino
Recently it became known that in February the "immortals" suffered a heavy loss. Due to a malfunction in the operation of the refrigerator, the body of one of the most famous proponents of cryonics, the French doctor Raymond Martino, was thawed.
Doctor Martino became interested in studying anabiosis (as cryonics is often called here, partly thanks to Soviet science fiction writers) in the 1970s, immediately after the first frozen patient of the California Society became widely known. France then (and still) sharply opposed the practice of storing human bodies after death; it is considered illegal in the country.
Raymond Martino perfectly understood that he was unlikely to succeed in forming a cryonics society in his country, and indeed he did not strive for it. The doctor wanted immortality for himself personally. And so, in the late 1970s, he bought a castle in the Loire Valley, in the basement of which he organized a small refrigerated storage unit made of hardened steel. In it, Martino was able to maintain a constant temperature of minus 65 degrees. From the point of view of modern cryonics, this is too warm – cellular metabolism, although slowed down, does not stop completely. However, the French enthusiast of freezing decided that such a refrigerator would be enough. But he was not destined to lie in this cozy crypt.
In 1984, shortly after the work on creating the storage facility was completed, his wife, Monique Leroy, died of cancer, and Doctor Martino naturally immediately placed her in the refrigerator. And then it turned out that constantly maintaining a temperature of minus 65 degrees (let alone minus 190) is very expensive even for a person who could afford buying a castle. Doctor Martino decided to earn money for the preservation of his wife in a rather strange way – for large sums of money, he began letting cryonics enthusiasts into his storage facility. However, the doctor did not show his wife's body itself, so as not to subject her to unnecessary effects of the external environment. "I would dream of looking at her every day and saying to her: hello, my beloved, I am so glad to see you! – but this is impossible," he once complained to journalists. Martino checked the condition of the body once every five years.
For 20 years, Dr. Martino and his cold chamber had become rather widely known. However, formally Monica was "buried in the family crypt," and all this time the French authorities had no complaints. But in 2002, after the doctor's death, when his son Remy placed his father next to his beloved wife, a French court unexpectedly brought a case against Remy himself. They wanted to force him to bury his frozen parents after all. And within a month, the French court issued a verdict: to remove Dr. Martino and his wife from the cold chamber, and in case of resistance from relatives, to use force.
Remy said he would fight to the end for the fulfillment of his father's last will and appealed the verdict to the European Court of Human Rights. There, this case dragged on for many years, with the attention of cryonics activists from all over the world riveted to it. However, the proceedings were not destined to be completed.
In February 2006, the cooling system in Professor Martino's storage facility malfunctioned, and the temperature rose to minus 20 degrees for several days. This proved enough for the bodies of the doctor and his wife to undergo irreversible changes. In March, Remy Martino decided to finally remove his parents from the cold chamber and cremate them. "I am not feeling too much grief now, since I already mourned them immediately after death," Remy told the France Press agency, "but I am sorry that I could not fulfill my father's last will. Perhaps the future will show that he was right and was a true pioneer of a new science."
The president of the Cryonics Institute in Michigan expressed deep regret over the cremation of Professor Martino's body. "Martino's experience was of great importance for us, since he carried out freezing after death in a country where this practice is prosecuted," he told journalists.
Ekaterina CHEKUSHINA.
Lenta.ru