p.314 #2. Cryonics: Another Quest for Immortality

       Mitford's essay "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain" mentions how morticians arrange and fix corpses so that the "concept of death has played no part whatsover." Americans focus on ignoring the end of life, euphemizing it as only passing away into another world. This common human fear of death has fueled the search for immortality throughout history. Cryonics, the phenomenon of quick-freezing the dead, is another theory in the quest for immortality. Too bad no one has discovered how to unfreeze the bodies and get them working again. For now, they lie in a limbo of liquid nitrogen.
       As bodily functions begin to fail, humans become legally dead, and then they can escape into "neurological suspension." Their bodies are chilled as quickly as possible, and their fluids are swapped for anti-freeze solutions. If this is what you prefer, for only $28,000 your body can be shipped to the Cryonics Institute in Clinton Township to join the other frozen immortals: 37 people, 10 cats, and 6 dogs.
       As previously stated, the human should be quickly chilled. It's also nice if Heparin is given to them. Then pack that human away and send them to the Cryonics Institute. Once it reaches the institute, the "wash out and perfusion" procedure, where blood is changed with a glycerin-based solution, is performed. A few hours later the human snuggles into a sleeping bag in a nice box of wood and fiberglass for a week. Dry ice sits on the box and its chilly vapors cool the body, decreasing it to negative forty degrees Fahrenheit. Next the body is put in an insulated container with liquid nitrogen. For a week, the human sinks into the liquid nitrogen until fully submerged at negative 320 degrees Fahrenheit. At last, the human can settle down in their long-term home called a cryostat. Their liquid nitrogen level is joyfully checked every day. Family can visit whenever they want, but shamefully will not see their relative through the cryostat.
       The process freezes human cells so that the human is legally dead while their cells are still alive. With the correct heating process, cells will unfreeze and the body will turn on again. No one has discovered how to restore the bodies and reverse the damages of freezing, but they are working on it. Currently, Robert Ettinger, the founder of the cryonics movement, lies in liquid nitrogen, but if he is revived, he will certainly have more to add to his 1964 book, The Prospect of Immortality. His future, and many others, awaits the scientific technology to revive their bodies and make immortality a reality.