Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-01-25
CHEMISTRY AND LIFE.
A Scientific Claim to Have Produced
Life by Chemical Means.

What is boldly called the chemical
production of life is announced by
the daily press to have been accom-
plished at the marine biological station
at Woods Holl, Mass, by Prof jacques
Loeb of the University of Califor-
MIA. Shorn of all sensational and
poetic diction, the statement is that
Professor Loeb has chemically ferti-
lized eggs of ''sea-urchins,' and has
Matched the eggs so fertilized. His
experiments are thus described in the
Boston Herald:
THE experiments were performed
during the last summer and fall. Pro-
fessor Norman Of Texas University
had already shown that the eggs Of
certain marine animals, when unfertil-
lied, had tendency to develop when
sodium or magnesium was added to
the sea-water in which they were Fol-
lowing this out, Professor Loeb be-
gan experiments with the sea-urchins
a 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
seawater, these developed into gas
trulae, and then into 'plutei, the lat
ter bearing the same relation to a sea-
urchin as tadpole to frog. Further
experiments convinced the scientist
that only the presence of calcium and
potassium in the sea-Water prevented
the development Of all unfertilized
eggs, and that all the milt deposited
by the male needed to do was to over
come the effect of these chemicals.
professor Loeb's announcement of
his experiments, and the belief to
which he is forced, practically es-
tablish new theory of the reproduce
ton of species. According to this,
the union of two elements is not neces-
sary for reproduction, but any cell may
divide and reproduce. This throws at
once what may be a most important
| light on the subject Of cancers and Of
dermold cysts. 1t becomes possible,
and, indeed, almost unavoidable of be-
lief. that these are abnormal attempts
at reproduction, due to local lack of
| that chemical element necessary to
restrain the cells from dividing and
| developing. Scientists at Woods Holl
have taken up this side of the question
| with eagerneSs, and are making eX-
periments to find in how large measure
this is true, and whether it may not
10 no 81
Professor Loeb is quoted as making
to reporter the following statement
regarding his work:
| The development Of the unfertilized
! egg-that is an assured fact. l believe
| an immaculate conception may be
natural result of unusual but natural
causes. The less a scientist says about
| that now the better. 1t is wonderful
| subject, and in many ways an awful
one. That the human species may be
made artifcially to reproduce itself by
| the withdrawal Of chemical restraint
| by other than natural means is mat
ter We do not like to contemplate.
But we have drawn a great step
nearer to the chemical theory of life
and may already see ahead of US the
| day when q scientist, experimenting
with chemicals in test-tube, may see
| them unite and form substance which
shall live and move and reproduce it
self. 1t will be the frst protoplas-
mic cell, the origin Of all life, which
was produced in the test-tube OF ma
| ture ages ago by the union, in the
course of the worlds evolution, of the
same chemical substances with which
he will have worked
Numerous comments ON Professor
Loeb's discovery made by prominent
biologists are gathered into an edi
torial in the Topeka Capital (Noyem-
Der 23). According to this paper, Pro
lessor Gage of Cornell speaks of it a5
follows: The development OF ami
mails by parthenogenesis-t is,
without fertilization-is a well-known
phenomenon in nature It is found in
animals, even so high in the scale as
the honeybee. Judging from the re-