The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-11-28
CHEMICAL PRODUCTION.
THE ASTOUNDING EXPERIMENTS
OF PROFESSOR LOER
At Woods HOle-Umfertilizcd Eggs
Hatched by tho Use of Sodium ana
Magnesium = "Immaculate concep-
ttOn' May be Possible.

Hatcheu by tho Use of Sodium ana
Magnesium "ImmacuIate Concep-
ton" May be Possible.
Professor jacques Loeb, of the Uni
versity of California, after months of
careful experimentation in the marine
biological laboratory at Woods Hole,
has made an assertion that has startled
the scientific world. His assertion is
this
That by chemical means he has sue
ceeded in Matching the unfertilzed eggs
of marine animals. That he has devel-
oped the larvae so Matched into healthy
animals, capable of exercising all the
functions of normally developed ami
mails. That by series of experiments
he is led to believe this can be done with
mammalians, including the human spe
cies.
The experiments were performed dur
ing the last summer and fall Profess
scr Norman, of Texas university, had
already shown that the eggs of certain
marine animals, when unfertilized, had
a tendency to develop when sodium or
magnesium was added to the sea water
in which they were. Following this
out, Professor Loeb began experiments
with the sea urchin, common marine
animal the male and female of which,
as of fishes, are separate individuals.
The unfertilized eggs of this animal
Professor Loeb subjected to solution,
of sodium and magnesium, and within
two hours they Matched, producing
!'blastulae,'' or the first larvae. Placed
in normal sea water, these developed
into "gastrulae" and then into "plutei,"
the latter bearing the same relation to
a sea urchin as a tadpole to frog.
Further experiments convinced the
scientist that only the presence of CAL
cium and potassium in the sea water
prevented the development of all infer
1nented eggs and that all the milt de-
posted by the male needed to do was to
overcome the effect of these chemicals.
Professor Loeb's announcement of his
experiments, and the belief to which
he is forced, practically establish new
theory of the reproduction of species
According to this, the union of two ele-
1nents is not necessary for reproduction,
but any cell may divide and reproduce.
This throws at once what may be
most important light OH the subject of
cancers and of dermoid cysts. 1t be-
comes possible, and, indeed, almost UNI
avoidable Of belief that these are alb
normal attempts at reproduction, due to
local lack of that chemical element ne
cessary to restrain the cells from di-
yiding and developing. Scientists at
Woods Hole have taken up this side of
the question with eagerness, and are
making experiments to find in how
large measures this is true, and wheth-
er it may not lead to the discovery of
cure
with regard to cancer, however, I
can say nothing" says Professor Loeb.
"Others, my colleagues, are working on
that. But the rest the development of
the unfertilized egg, that is an assured
fact. I believe an immaculate concep-
ton may be a natural result of unusual
but natural causes The less a scientist
says about that now the better 1t is a
wonderful subject, and in many ways
an awful one. That the human species
may be made artifically to reproduce
itself by the withdrawal of chemical re-
straint by other than natural means is
matter we do not like to contemplate.
''But we have drawn great step
and may already see ahead of us the
day when a scientist, experimenting
with chemicals in test tube, may see
them unite and form a substance which
shall live and move and reproduce it.
self 1t will be the first protoplasmc
CELL the origin of all life, which was
produced in the test tube of nature ages
ago by the union in the course of the
nff ot1n y,ofco al
substances with which he will have
worked"
If the discoveries are verified by fur
Their experimentation, the possibility is
that science may explain the miracle of
Immaculate conception, over which long
and bitter contests have been waged.
Centuries ago scientists and theologians
took up the quarrel and they have con-
tinued it up to the present day. Biolo-
gists studying the phenomena of life
declared that it was chemically created
in the first place, but that man was the
result of an age-long evolution which
had brought about the impossibility of
reproduction without the union of the
male and the opposite element. 1t was
impossible, from their standpoint, for
woman be become a mother from any
power in herself. Theologians, on the
other hand, have held that, whatever
might be the usual manner, in the case
of Mary there was no other fatherhood
than that of the Almighty. They have
remained true to belief in this even
when abandoning belief in the miracles
performed by the Savior.
Jacques Loeb, who is responsible for
what may become revolution in sci
ence, was born in 1859 He was educa-
ted at the universities of Berlin, Munich
and Strasburg, taking his degree of M.
D. in Strasburg in 1884. He passed his
examination as physician in 1885, and
did independent work in physiology
first at the physiological laboratory OF
x,Hy VII