Biostasis: Historical Context

Abstract: The concept of biostasis has been with us for rather long time, emerging publicly in the form of myths like that of Sleeping Beauty from at least medieval times. Among natural philosophers, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek and Benjamin Franklin both observed living organisms that seemed to die and become reborn, and they asked why. More recently, advances in medicine have brought the idea of suspending animation out of the imaginary and speculative world and into the operating room. This paper provides an overview of the background against which that current work is happening. For organizational purposes, I break the history into five evolving periods with different approaches: (1) empirical, (2) fanciful, (3) explanatory, (4) engineering, and (5) experimental/medical. In the end, the historical story raises questions about whether we want to be brought back to life, when, why, and under what conditions.