X-Message-Number: 4773
Date:  Sat, 12 Aug 95 19:00: 
From: mike <>
Subject: Disney-Trans Time connection?

This is a response to message #4762, regarding a biography of Walt 
Disney by Leonard Mosley. The poster, snopes, asks, "Are there any 
obvious factual errors in the following paragraph?" He then quotes 
an amazing paragraph indeed from the book--if this is supposed to be 
nonfiction--as follows:

"It was about this time [Fall 1966] that Walt Disney became 
acquainted with the experiments into the process known as 
cryogenesis, or what one newspaper termed "the freeze-drying of the 
human cadaver after death, for eventual resuscitation." He was shown 
a report that in California, in the small town of Emeryville, across 
the bay from San Francisco, a medical laboratory called Trans Time 
had begun experiments with human cadavers to preserve them for the 
future. A newly dead body was first treated and operated on to 
eliminate the diseased organs that had ended normal life. It was then 
stored away in a refrigerated container until such time as it could 
be thawed out, organs and blood vessels brought back into action, and 
life restored."

My reaction is, "Yes, there are some obvious factual errors."  Or a 
better way to put it might be, "Yes, there is some inkling of truth 
here, though no small share of distortions too." It's too bad 
this wasn't sent to someone knowledgeable about the history of 
cryonics, and cryonics in general, before it was published. Anyway, 
here are my comments, based on what I believe to be correct 
information.

Trans Time was incorporated in March 1972. Thus it couln't have been 
contacted by anyone representing Walt Disney, who died in 1966. (They 
also couldn't have frozen anyone prior to 1972; in fact their first 
suspensions occurred in 1974.) As for Disney, I happen to know that 
his minions did contact a liquid 
nitorgen supplier, Gilmore Liquid Air, which has offices in southern 
California. But apparently nothing came of this. Robert Nelson in 
1990 also said that Disney Studios sent him a letter a few months 
before Disney died but "that was all." (Nelson, of course, is 
notorious for the Chatsworth meltdown that occurred years later, but 
at this point had not frozen anyone.) Other than these, I don't know 
of any contacts between Disney and anyone involved with cryonics.

The issue was also raised in snopes' posting as to when the first 
cryonic suspension took place.  On April 22, 1966 
a woman was placed into liquid nitorgen storage; however, this was 
after about 2 months' storage in a mortuary refrigerator at 
above-freezing temperature, and she had been embalmed after death, not 
treated with cryoprotectant. Thus it seems reasonable to discount 
this as the first cryonic suspension. The next person to be frozen 
was James Bedford on Jan. 12, 1967, and here the conditions were much 
better, though still hardly more than a straight freeze. But he was 
frozen reasonably quickly after death (we think), and this is usually 
regarded as the first true cryonic suspension.

As for  "cryogenesis" meaning "freeze-drying of the 
human cadaver ..." this seems to be a confusion between cryonics 
(assuming it's reasonable to equate "cryonics" and "cryogenesis") and 
certain practices now used for pets. Certainly there is no 
"freeze-drying" process involved in cryonic suspensions.

There is also the claim: "A newly dead body was first treated and 
operated on to eliminate the diseased organs that had ended normal 
life." This is not part of any cryonics procedures I am aware of,
unless you want to count neurosuspensions, in which *all* organs 
below the neck are eliminated!

Mike Perry


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