X-Message-Number: 26438
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:50:12 -0700
From: Mike Perry <>
Subject: Re: "Zombie Dog"
References: <>

My comments on Billy Seidel's posting #26417:


>Does anyone remember Jerry Leaf?  Well I do. In 1997 he did a TBW (Total 
>Body Washout) for Transtime.

No, he was suspended in 1991. The date you refer to, I think, is July 1977, 
when a dog washout and cooling to 22C was done, after which the dog was 
rewarmed, resupplied with blood, and survived for 17 hours. (Though not a 
complete success, this experiment which was done for Trans Time did 
accomplish something that led to longterm survival of dogs cooled much 
closer to the ice point.)

>When I interview him for the Video I did in May of 1987, called "Time 
>Travelers", he did not claim to be the first one to ever do a TBW.

A non-cryonicist, Gerald Klebanoff, was doing this sort of experiment and 
getting dogs (and other creatures too I think) back from deep hypothermia 
and clinical death (cardiac/respiratory arrest) in the 1960s.

>I remember Jerry with great respect.  I also remember Mike Darwin with 
>that same great respect.  Now, does anyone remember "Dixie".

I took care of Dixie for 2 or 3 years at Alcor's facility in Riverside, 
before we finally found someone to adopt her and her sister, Slinky.

>   For a long time Dixie was the Alcor mascot.  As Mike Darwin told us in 
> the video, Dixie was a TBW for 4 hrs and 40 min. Taken down to 4 degrees 
> C. After her reanimation, she appears in the video, healthy and vibrant. 
> Dixie was not a ZOMBIE DOG. She remembered her name and her tricks.

Actually, Mike always said she had some impairment. But not having known 
what she was like before her TBW (this was before I worked at Alcor) I 
could not see any obvious impairment and she was one of the friendliest, 
nicest creatures I ever met.

>Now I am not the historian that Mike Perry is so check this out with him. 
>I also believe that at that time, May of 1987, Alcor had done this 
>procedure on 11 dogs to test the viability of the profusate.( hope I got 
>the spelling correct).

"perfusate." 11 dogs sounds about right. (The exact number can be found 
from the back issues of *Cryonics* which are now at Alcor's Website.) I 
remember the first dog Alcor successfully revived was a German shepherd 
that was given the name Star. This was in the summer of 1984. It was not 
the first dog ever recovered longterm from deep hypothermia (remember 
Klebanoff) but was the first such accomplishment by a cryonics 
organization. It was a very important accomplishment for a small movement 
not accepted as part of the scientific mainstream, and it helped our 
credibility, albeit we still have a ways to go in the eyes of the world.

Mike Perry

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=26438