X-Message-Number: 1296
Date: 11 Oct 92 06:26:46 EDT
From: "Steven B. Harris" <>
Subject: Talk of Sacred Things Aloud...

    >>Along with Charles Platt I did not find Edgar Swank's long
message dull or boring, but I do feel that it could have been
spread out. I like the idea of summarizing large postings so we
can ask for more details.<<

   Comment:  Yes...    but the difficulty with such messages is,
as Emily Dickinson once complained, that "they talk of sacred
things aloud, and embarrass my cat."   Which is to say that the
real problem with the BBS material in question was perhaps not so
much length, or lack of summary per se, or lack of interest; but
rather a psychological stickiness of Freudian proportions.  

   Do we really need, for instance, to read about Jerry White
gently massaging his mother?  And if so, do we need (for lack of
an editor) to read again and again about Jerry White gently
massaging his mother?   "But hail!" writes Jerry to his mother,
"You, the fragile glory of animalhood!  You, belly that kindled
and held me, portal that birthed me, breasts that fed me..." etc. 
The subject obviously interests Jerry, but the rest of us BBS
readers were in a severe struggle to keep from losing it long
before we got to the mouth-to-mouth sequence.  Possibly there
should be a warning in front of the really 
nails-on-blackboard-maudlin stuff?  This of course being what
everyone here on the Net has obliquely been asking for (i.e., a
sort of emotional-pornography warning label for certain cryonics
essays, in the form of a summary), but without quite coming out
and saying it.  

   Okay, so now I'm saying it.  Where is Tipper Gore when we
cryonicists need her?  ;-}

   I do want to say, by the way, that this whole episode brought
to mind Edgar Swank's assertion on this BBS not long ago that
there were several people in ACS who had contracted for the
mortuary-perfusion-brain-removal-by-pathologist cryonics option,
and THAT THESE PEOPLE were entirely satisfied and happy about it. 
At the time, there wasn't much I could say to that, though I was
dumfounded.  Reading Mr. White's piece about this sort of thing
in practice, however, I have to say that among many feelings
there I did not quite get the feeling that he was entirely happy
and satisfied about what happened.  On the contrary, I saw
painted a picture of someone who was not only left alone to try
to do the resuscitation of his mother with equipment that didn't
work, but who also discovered at the end that his mother's brain
had not been perfused uniformly, because of a poorly designed
protocol.  If Jerry got this deal for a cut rate, he might have
gotten good value depending on how much he paid (say, are all the
ACS brain-only and HIV people funded at pauper rates?), but on
the other hand, if all this went down for the full ACS neuro
price then in my opinion Jerry got a really bum deal, since for
the same money he could have had Alcor do a decent job.

   Once upon a time here on CryoNet I pointed out that the idea
of perfusing people through carotids alone was a bad idea because
the hind brain is perfused through the vertebrals, and in 75% of
people the connections between forebrain and hindbrain circula-
tion are less than perfect.   At the time, Mr. Swank said he did
not understand me due to technical medical jargon, so here it is
again in words of a few syllables:  

   Four vessels feed the brain, and these four vessels are con-
nected perfectly to each other at the base of the brain (in a
fully-formed "circle of Willis") in only 25% of people.  The
other 75% of people are probably best perfused through all four
vessels.  That means open chest surgery to isolate the ascending
aorta.  Mr. White & Co. discovered that one carotid is not enough
(duh-- surprise) but the lesson is in fact more general.  Even
both carotids will not be enough for most people, judging by both
Alcor's dog work and the known facts of human neurovascular
anatomy.    

   The problem with cryonics (as has often been remarked) is that
there is too little quality control, because in cryonics no one
is really sure in many cases just what "quality" is.  It is safe
to say, however, that you'd like to know that you have some given
concentration of glycerol or other cryoprotectant in a brain
before you cool it to cryogenic temperatures, and you'd also like
to know that this given concentration is reasonably uniform
throughout the brain.   At Alcor, we get at these questions by
controlling the entire 4-vessel --> 3-vessel circulation to the
brain in every suspension, and by measuring the glycerol con-
centrations in venous return from the brain so we know how much
got in.  I've yet to see evidence of both of these crucial
operations being done together ever at other cryonics organiza-
tions, where in contrast the philosophy often seems to be: stick
a needle in, pump solution for a while, pray, and freeze.  Always
the same story.  Worse still, I'm afraid that I'm condemned to
have to *download* this story in various forms again and again
and again in future years at a price (call 1-900-CRYO-EEK),
thanks to Ed Swank and the miracle of the modern computer.

   And all without a single pornography warning label, too.

                                Steve Harris

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