X-Message-Number: 5836
From:  (RAMole)
Newsgroups: sci.cryonics
Subject: Methods of perfusing Glycerine
Date: 26 Feb 1996 03:20:43 -0500
Message-ID: <4grqgr$>

I caught the tail end of a TV news item which gave the impression that
small toads can be frozen solid and revived because they manage to infuse
glycerine around their cells, preventing the formation of large ice
crystals.  And that rat hearts and maybe larger ones have been frozen and
thawed this way, but that it's hard to get the glycerine distributed into
all the parts of larger object, or hard to do it before the tissue dies. 
If this is correct, it seems to boil down to a question of how to make
glycerine perfuse through tissue quickly.

Has anyone tried simple pressure?  For example, filling the circulatory
system with it and raising the "blood" pressure to the max that can be
withstood?  

I think there are also experiments with delivery of drugs via transdermal
patches.  At present, only small molecules will go through the skin this
way, but by applying a charge to the patch, they're finding they can force
through much larger ones.  Could a voltage differential speed the
perfusion of glycerine?

On a different topic, what's the best textbook on the whole science of
cryogenics?

Alan Mole 


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