Omaha daily bee., 1902-04-13
Has Professor Loeb Solved Lies Secret?

Of all the electric charges Of the particles
oe this protoplasm.'
II electricity is at the source Of living
energy, mans digestive apparatus is no
longer to be regarded as a heat producins
mechanism. His stomach is a dynamo and
his nerves are the connecting media-the
telegraph wires-for communication be
tween the different parts of the body and
the storage battery in his Uranium. His
heart is a big, muscular pump, which beats
rhythmiCally, because of the electrical
charges produced by chemical changes 60
ing on in the body. His lungs are a set
Of bellows, which suck in oxygen and eX-
pei carbonic acid gas for a similar reason.
The Cranial storage battery is the seat of a
mechanical intelligence. which directs the
actions Of its surface c~Xtremities and main
tains an electrical equilibrium in the body.
We have, then, in ourselves, each an air and
liquid pump, a storage battery and a set
of wires. all operated by electricity created
hv 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 GER
tain balance electrically, and illness or
death comes with a variation Of this cleo
trical state. This is, indeed, a new physi-
ology.
The simplest form Of life is the single
CCllod organism-the sea urchin is a good
example. 1t was with this form that Dr..
Loeb carried on most of his important ex-
p,riments at Woods Holl, Mass, and in
the Marine observatory in Naples, Italy.
Experiments Of this sort were fundament-
ally important. for all life is simply proto-
plasm in some form or other. If DR.. Loeb
could determine what caused the move
ments of the little mass of protoplasm
which composes the sea urchin, he could
then determine with certainty the causes OF
the functions of life in many complex cells
of living matter.
Few have probably stopped to think what
this theory means in its relation to our
former beliefs in life, it's spiritual crea-
ton, it's origin and its end. Dr.. Loeb has
done that which has been puzzling the
scientists for a century past-he has linked
the inanimate world with the animate.
"Will it not be more difficult" | asked,
"to harmonic this conception of life with
our present religious beliefs than it was for
Darwin's theory of evolution to be finally
accepted by the Christian world?"
Il don't want to discuss that" replied
DR.. Loeb. "All l can say is that for a
long time l puzzled over the forces which
rule in the realm Of the animate and then
I came to the conclusion that those forces
were the same as those which ruled the
inanimate."
After the theory came the experiments
The biologist reduced conscious life to a
material basis by creating conscious life
To be sure, this creation has as yet been
dCne very crudely, but the significance OF
the result is no less important. Now that
he has accomplished the prolonging Of the
life Of the simple-celled sea Urchin, and
more than that, the creation of life in these
forms, he has brought the scientists and
, the churchmen face TO face with the eterna
why. The door of the mystery house o
creation will probably remain closed t.
them.
The greatest difficulty of the biologists Il
to explain the chemical character Of life
Much of the phenomenal Of life can be repro.
duced in the chemists laboratory, but thu