When did people first want to become immortal? Probably when they began to think about life and death. It is quite logical that such washes led to the beginning of the search for ways and means of achieving eternal life.
The first attempts were noted in the ancient Sumerian epic. Gilgamesh, after a long journey, found a flower that could give eternal life. This was quite in the spirit of those times: most of the medicines were made on the basis of plants, so it is quite logical that the elixir of immortality was also sought there. It can be assumed that there were some attempts to experiment with herbal ingredients in Sumer. But, as you can see, there were no results, so the Sumerians abandoned this idea.
In Egypt, they did not search for the elixirs of immortality. They were preparing, and very seriously, for the other world. Giant pyramids were built, the pharaohs tried to take with them everything they needed for the afterlife. However, they did not rush to the next world, and to prolong their life they ate garlic in large quantities and chewed tobacco.
Tibetan doctors recommended taking a few drops of alcohol infused with garlic every day. Some peoples, on the contrary, were convinced that the life expectancy of a person was predetermined even before birth, therefore it was impossible to change it. But even in this case, they tried to be cunning. So, for example, the Assyrians believed that life increases for the time that a person spends fishing, because the period that a person spends with a fishing rod is not included in the total life span.
For many centuries, the search for the elixir of immortality stopped. And only 800 years later, China made a persistent attempt to achieve immortality. Emperor Shi Huang believed in the afterlife and even built an entire underground city. But it was a fallback. The main one was the eternal reign. He equipped an entire sea expedition in search of the flower of immortality, but she did not find anything and did not return, fearing the imperial wrath. Therefore, all over the country they were looking for herbs in order to invent the elixir of immortality by the method of errors and trial. The emperor instilled in his courtiers so much that he was going to rule forever that even after his death they were afraid to touch him. He was sitting on the throne - just in case (and suddenly he will rise again) …
And only in ancient Greece, the problem of the search for immortality was approached from a scientific point of view. To prolong life, it was recommended to stick to a diet, exercise and water treatment, massage and add some wine to food.
In the ancient world, along with the search for methods of prolonging life, the search for the elixir of immortality continued. It was during this period in Egypt that the idea of the philosopher's stone and alchemy arose. Strictly speaking, it is from the philosopher's stone that the concept of "elixir of immortality" originated. In the Middle Ages, famous scientists were engaged in alchemy, in particular, R. Bacon, who recommended incense, gold, snake meat, pearls and the breath of girls to prolong life. Of course, no one managed to get the Philosopher's Stone, and no one became immortal either.
In the 17th century, it became obvious that no philosopher's stone existed, but the science of that time could not offer any alternative. All achievements in the field of life extension came down to the compilation of life tables.
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And only in the 19th century, the situation gradually began to change. The famous biologist's grandfather, the English physician E. Darwin, expressed the theory that aging is an irreversible fatigue of cells. The first clear model of aging was created by Gompertz in 1825, and it still most accurately describes the mortality of not only humans, but also many living things. And August Weismann, who is one of the founders of genetics, suggested that aging is a certain way of cleaning a species from old individuals. A little later, the hypothesis appeared that aging is a disease that can be treated. This theory still exists today.
Is man mortal? The results of numerous experiments carried out in the USSR, and relatively recently declassified, cast doubt on this statement. The scientist A. Bogdanov was the first to doubt the inevitability of death, who conducted the first experiments on the prolongation of youth in 1924. He was sure that the formula for immortality is quite simple: you just need to take the energy of young people and share it among everyone. The source of this energy is blood. Therefore, it is necessary to transfuse the blood of the young into the bodies of the elderly. As a result, the first institutes for blood transfusion appeared. Together with Bogdanov, some enthusiasts tested this theory for themselves. After the procedure, Bogdanov felt great, but he became fatal 12 times for the scientist, since the donor had a different rhesus. Bogdanov died at that very momentwhen he came extremely close to solving the mystery of eternal youth.
However, the death of Bogdanov did not stop other scientists. In 1928, A. Bogomolets began to carry out similar experiments. He discovered the cytotoxic antireticular serum. It consisted of horse blood with the antigen of the spleen and human bone marrow injected into it. According to Bogomolets, the main causes of aging are weakened muscles and saggy skin. Thanks to the serum, connective tissues are activated, changing the state of the cellular plasma. In other words, the serum restores youth, but it does not grant immortality. Serum was actively used until 1946, it was especially widely used during the war years for the rapid healing of wounds, increasing the body's resistance to infection, healing bone fractures.
Another scientist who tried to solve the riddle of immortality was the biologist Viktor Saraev. He argued that a person ages because his body produces less protein over time. The body lacks the necessary substances, so a person feels weak. And in order to start time in the opposite direction, you need to force the body to produce the necessary substances. In the late 1960s, he managed to isolate an element from the rat's body that could not only stop the rate of aging, but could restore youth forever. The scientist exposed rats to severe stress through drowning or hunger. If the animals survived, they developed euphoria, and in this state Saraev threw them into liquid nitrogen. Then he thawed the rats to 4 degrees, and in this state he released a physiologically active metabolite, which injected old individuals. As a result, the life of these rats increased by several years, and the body almost did not age.
The drug developed by Saraev was in demand, and the scientist himself received a state prize and money for further research. Saraev injected himself, but did not reveal the secret of the elixir to anyone. However, in the 1980s, the scientist was sent on a well-deserved rest, without waiting for the final results of the research, but Saraev hid the last ampoule. In 1982, he died of a mysterious allergic reaction. He was never diagnosed.
This was not the first time that scientists who were engaged in the creation of the elixir of immortality died and all the results of their research disappeared. However, this does not scare scientists, so these days such studies are actively being conducted.
So, in 2003, a large-scale project was launched in Moscow, in which 35 research groups took part. The project participants came to the conclusion that death is a genetic program that can be blocked. It was based on the theory that all cells in the body are programmed to self-destruct. Thus, a substance is needed that can stop this self-destruction program and at the same time trigger a reboot of the body.
The study, codenamed Mapuseila Mice, was conducted on laboratory mice, and all information was classified. Perhaps the only thing that is known is that Russian oligarchs are funding the research.
There are other developments as well. So, in particular, the Russian hydrobiologist Valery Zyuganov managed to find the primary elixir of youth. In some reservoirs located in the north of Russia, he found a rare species of mollusks, the larvae of which parasitize on the gills of salmon coming to spawn. As a rule, salmon dies after spawning. But the scientist noticed that the fish not only does not die, but lives up to 7 times longer. At the same time, molluscs live for about two hundred years. As a result of research, these mollusks inject a certain fluid into the bloodstream, which increases their lifespan. The elixir of pearl, diluted 200 times, can prolong the life of rats with cancer. Therefore, we can conclude that this elixir in certain proportions can also prolong human life.
According to biochemists, this species of river molluscs is on the verge of extinction, and their complete extinction may occur in a decade. It is impossible to deduce them artificially, since scientists have not been able to reveal the components of the magical substance.
Thus, humanity is still in search of the elixirs of immortality and it is not yet known whether it will be possible to find it.
Currently, about 500 theories and the nature of aging are known, but so far none of them has found proper evidence.