The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1902-04-13

which do not nominally exist in the
human frame, may be actually created.
Not by me is this announcement to be
made" he added. 1.-THE work has been
done by another scientist, and l can
not talk about the matter yet. You
see, there are others working on these
great problems"
Can life be created at the will of
man? Can a scientist show how to
avoid death? Is there a reasonable
way of lengthening life? These are
questions which every one asks For
merly the answer would have been,
"Impossible!" Now the man in the
street is saying, Possibly" and the
biologists who have been watching DR..
Loeb's work are ready to say, "Proba-
bly,"
At any rate, that is the conclusion to
which a study of DR.. Loebs expert
ments inevitably leads. Here is a SCI
enlist who has already. in n sense,
created life. He has taken unfertil-
lized sea urchin eggs, from which, I'M
til they are brought into contact with
the sperm, no life can develop, and he
has, by means of chemical solutions,
been able to develop these so that they
are living organisms the same as
though they had been developed in the
ordinary manner. With other solutions,
salts and chlorides, and other unfer-
tilted eggs he has accomplished SINH
lar results. Other scientists have veri-
fled these conclusions by experiments of
their own; the result is a matter of sci
entific history now, and what is called
artificial parthenogenesis" is a fact
no longer to be questioned.
DR.. Loeb has gone further than this,
however, further than any previous BIZ
ologist. He has determined that the
living organism is protoplasm in
liquid state; that death comes when the
protoplasm passes into more or less
solid condition, and that life itself de-
Ponds on the electrical charges of the
protoplasmal particles. 1t was shown
some time ago that poisons acted on
the nerves in just this manner-the COL
loidal substance of which the nerves
are composed began to soIidify under
the action of poison. Here we may see
the application of the new pharmacol-
ogy. 1t is no longer necessary to ad-
minister medicines blindly. The exact
effect of evry drug, every chemical,
can be ascertained without difficulty.
The body, in illness or health, must be
in a certain chemical state, which will
be shown by the new methods of dag
nosis. Granted that this latter may be
accomplished, and 1t seems now that
it will be, it is easy to see how the
proper chemicals, or medicines, bear
ing the proper charges of electricity
in themselves, may be used to restore
the body to it's normal condition. The
scientists will have shown us a way
to control physical life. This is prob
ably very near to what Prof. Loeb
meant when he said that he wished to
understand life, to take it in his hands
and play with it as he chose.
On what, then, does life depend?
H. Il .oI@
"is that an electric charge keeps our
protoplasm in liquid condition so as
to prevent coagulation. Life depends
on the liquid condition of certain parts
of our protoplasm; death comes with
the coagulation of these parts, and the
forces which make the manifesto tions
of life possible are first of all the cleo
trio charges of the particles of this
protoplasm."
If electricity is at the source of liv-
ing energy, mans digestive apparatus
is no longer to be regarded as a heat
producing mechanism. His stomach is
a dynamo and his nerves are the con-
Meeting media--the telegraph wires
for communication between the differ
ent parts of the body and the stor-
age battery in his Uranium. His heart
is big, muscular pump, which beats
rythmically, because of the electrical
charges produced by chemical changes
going on in the body. His lungs are
a set of bellows, which suck in oxygen
and expel carbonic acid gas for a SIM
liar reason. The cranial storage bat
terry is the seat of a mechanical intel
ligence, which directs the actions of
it's surface extremities and maintains
an electrical equilibrium in the body.
We have, then, in ourselves, each an
air and liquid pump, storage bat
terry and a set of wires, all operated
by electricity created by chemical
changes.
The body has a certain constant
charge of electricity when in a normal
condition, just as the earth is said to
maintain a certain balance electrical
ly, and illness or death comes with
a variation Of this electrical state. This
is, indeed, a new physiology.
The simplest form Of life is the single |