The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1898-10-13
cHplnoAL PROOF 81 le0D!i


Human Produeilon % Organic Bodies
Atiesis sIua1aT Agency 80 ihs UHlverss.
London Saturday Review: Tho for
nation OF organic bodies has scared
those obsessed by the gratuisous terror
Of breach In the wan between life and
non-livlng matter, and Prof. Japp has
come to their aid.
The new prophet, however. has Moth
Ing more remarkable in his doctrine
than It's proclamation with the potnp
End dignity devoted to chemistry. Long
ago, Pasteur. who was the founder OF
that branch of modern chemistry with
which Prof Jnpp dealt. made his re-
maTiable discovery between the optic
al activity OF certain chemical bodies
and the existence OF a peculiar asEm-
metry In their structure. This asym-
metrV has been compared with the re.
iatlon between right hand and q left
hand, but a more Ingenious and intel
ligibIe comparison Is that with SEMI
detached villa. The whole edifice Is u
symmetrical body; the right-hand house
and the left-hand house are each lop-
sided. and their wants OF symmetry are
Complementary, so that the reflection
in mirror Of. say, the left-hand villa
would seem, not another left-hand VII
Ia, but the twin rIght-hand portion Of
the building. When Hight passes
through solntions OF bodies the MOLE
cuIes, OF which correspond to the twin
pairs, Il Is unaffected; when 1t passes
through solutions containing an excess
OF right-hand or left-hand structures, Il
Is twisted to the right or to the left.
When organisms act upon neutral So
luton they gradually transform Il, into
an active solution by selectlVe absorp-
ton OF one set Of the component parts
Pastaur proclaimed, what has since
been shown to be probably universal
truth, that organisms alone produce Is
plated bodies Of right or Of left-hunded
asymmetry. Moreover, II appears TO be
the case that, when organic bodies are
formed artiticially. either the twin
halves are present IN a conjolned state
or in such equal proportions that they
neutraiiEe one another, With the result
that the artikacts are neutral 20 light.
while the natural products twist II
1t Is upon the relteration OF such
facts, stated certainly, with dlstin-
gulshed luminosity, that Prof.. Japp
POUNDS his claim to the grave attention
OF biologists and the profound gratitude
OF PHILOSOPHERS. He drives Il home by
two extraordinary statements. It hap
pens 10 be the case that chemists by
picking out crystals under the micro
scope are able to separate in artificial
ly prepared solutions the two kinds OF
symmetrical bodies. and so to prepare
OFFICIALLY active bodies like those ac-
tually formed in organisms. To this
Prof. Japp, borrowing, as he tells US,
from Owen Brown, retorts that hereaf-
ter all there Is the operation Of living
organisms acting through the micro
scope! Precisely so: unless man, an
organism, existed, there would be MI
possibility OF the human production OF
organic bodies. The second remarkable
statement is remarkable only as coming
from scientific man, who presumably
has q training In the logical pursuit OF
an argument 1t is the statement that
It Is inconceivable that at the first be-
ginning Of life these optlcally active
bodies could, have come Into existence
without the direct Intervention OF some
selectIVe agency comparable with the
action OF a chemist selecting and re-
jectlng with the aid OF microscope.
For this statement Is precisely the
thesis which Prof. Japp processes TO be
proving.