Dr. James Hiram Bedford was a man of many accomplishments—a professor at the University of California, a World War I veteran, and a well-traveled individual who led a fulfilling life. However, he is perhaps most famously remembered as the first person to undergo cryonic preservation, a process in which a human body (or brain) is preserved at extremely low temperatures after death.
In 1967, Bedford, a wealthy man, was diagnosed with kidney cancer that had spread to his lungs. At that time, medical advancements were not as developed as they are today.
Having already encountered the concept of cryonics, Bedford was aware of the idea of preserving a body after death. He had read about the process in The Prospect of Immortality, a book by Dr. Robert Ettinger, the founder of the Cryonics Institute and the pioneer of body freezing experiments. Ettinger’s institute offers services to freeze bodies after death with the hope of reviving them in the future when medical science advances enough to cure the condition that led to death. Inspired by this concept, Bedford requested that his body be preserved after his passing.
On the afternoon of January 12, 1967, Bedford’s body underwent the cryonic process. First, he was injected with dimethyl sulfoxide to protect his organs, and his blood was fully drained. Then, he was placed into a tank filled with liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196°C.
