The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-12-26
SUSPENDED ANIMATION.
NEW YORK SCIENTIST EXPECTS
TO SOLVE THE MYSTERY.

This Wintcr-His Theory of the
Identity of Information and Sus-
pended Animation.
New York Letter. st. Louis Globe-Demo-
crat.
collection of snakes, toads, turtles,
woodchucks, squirrels and rabbits, all
huddled together in an outbuilding at Prof.
Rees' pleasant home On the side of Snake
hill, just back of Newburg, may be the
means of solving one of the most import
ant scientific questions of the day-that
of suspended animation. These animals
and reptiles have been collected for ex-
neriments that will be carried on all
through the winter months. They are all
alternating animals and they viii be sub
iected to different degrees of cold, vary
ing from very moderate temperature,
which merely chills the creatures into a
semi-torpid state, to the hardest kind of
freezing. In fact, some of the animals
will be artfficially frozen in blocks of ice
and kept there until early spring.
A large shed, with a natural earth floor
ing, has been provided for the purpose. In
this place the animals can burrow~ down
three feet in the soil for protection from
the cold; but then they come to a board
flooring through which they cannot pene-
trate The building is so exposed to the
cold north and west winds that it will
have a very low temperature all winter.
Every day as the season advances Prof.
Rees will examine his queer congregation
of pets, and note the first instance of hi
bernation, partial or complete, and take
account of the temperature in the shed.
There are half a dozen animals of each
IL. III a for
individual variation of the different spe-
cies.
Very little is accurately known about
the Information of our North American an
imals, and the best scientists dispute
among themselves about the question.
Some animals are supposed TO hibernate,
hut no trustworthy observer has ever
found all of them in this condition. Prof.
Reese will demonstrate beyond doubt
whether certain animals spend their win
tiers in sound sleep, and also the tempera-
ture required to send them off in their stu
por.
But this is only small part of his inves-
legations. AS the animals succumb grad
ually to the soporific effect of the cold
they will be picked up and laid on slabs Of
ice in the cold shed, and examinations of
their internal organs be made. Is hiberna-
ton another form of suspended animation?
That is the question that the professor
wishes to ascertain. Does the heart stop
beating, and do the lungs cease to expand
and contract in animals that are apparent
ly dead in the middle of the winter, but
which quickly revive under the influence
or neat! II TINS question could De sats-
factorlly determined mealcaI science would
be greatly oenented, 1or people IN catalep-
tic attacks resemble hlbernatIng animals
so closely that it is difficult to describe the
difference. 1t is supposed by some eminent
medical experts that there is a condition
of suspended animation in both men and
animals when one is truly neither dead nor
alive. 1t is lowering on the border land
between life and death. Cold creates this
state in animals every winter; but va
Tious mental and nervous troubles produce
it occasionally in human beings.
The animals will be subjected to injec-
tons of powerful stimulants during their
Information state, and to other expert
ments to see if they can be revived with
out the influence of heat. Several of the
smaller ones will be artifcially frozen up
in blocks of ice, and preserved in this con-
dition as long as possible 1t is an unsettled
question just how long the animals can
exist in their winter sleep and so blocks
of these frozen animals win be thawed out
every three months beginning in the ear
~ spring Two of them will be kept for a
couple of winters and summers. Instances
of arctic fauna frozen up in icebergs and
revived bv the melting of the ice in warm
is n
good reason whv orr nibernating animals
should not he able TO stand fine same treat
ment
Fibernation is ouite common amono
most of orr northern animals althonrh
there are MANY peclIliar exceDtions and
in the tropics extreme heat causes a sim
liar condition among the fauna called
destination. In the tropes where ex
treme heat and drought come ON reg
ularly. many of the animals go into a
STUPID sleep. from which they are NOT
aroused again until the return Of tbe RAINY
season. PROT. Reese has spent many years
in tropical America where he closely stu
died this destination of animals and came
to the conclusion that IL was nearly iden.
tical to Information and also 10 what
we call suspended animation in human
beings To carry ont This theory he
quotes the ancient F,gvptians and the In
dian falxirs whom he believes discovered
The secrets If slIsnendedl anirnation ana
used their Knowledge to bewilder the
Truroneans They could certainly nrodnce
Tho condition of susnended snimation of
will or at least Something very similar