The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-25
ANOTHER CREATION CLAIM

ANOTHER ChEAt1ON CLAAH.
 Once more we are informed that the secret of life has been discovered. and that animal life can be produced by arr tihcial means. To adopt the words of The New York Mail.
 Ayoung Irish professor at Cambridge, John Butler Burke by name. until now render his country as iliustrious In science as 1t has been in poetry. arms and religion. It all depends on the bouillcn with which he has been ope- rating were entirely sterilized. totally destitute of all forms of life. If, as he medium "absoiutely lethai to all known forms of fife" then he has generated in them. what are evidently units or nuclei fss ef life by injecting psdgm nto ter name. he calls radiobes.
 For almost as long as the ordinary human can remember, we have been hearing something of this same nature. Time and again some scientific experi- menter has announced that he had dis- covered the art of producing life spontaneous generation. he called 1t. Those scientific gentlemen have gone so far as to assert, in more than one in- stance. that they have actually pro- duced. or created living germs which were absolutely artificial. And yet there has always not only been doubt as to the genuineness of these produc. tions. but we have also the significant fact that If there have been such crea- tions the process has gone no further. prt arIo a higher existence. Even the vaunted products of Professor Jacques Loeb have not grown.
 Our Irish professor goes at 1t in new way. and the wonderful radium comes to his assistance Taking some kind of soup as a medium. he in some way injects radium into 1t and produces living germs We are not informed as to the brand of soup he uses, but he asserts that 1t is first rendered abso- lutely lifeless. and that he fires radium Into it by some method and actual anil maj life is the result
 The scientific theory of life is very isn't a paradox. It is simple, in that It's lowest form or beginning is cell and that cell holds the protoplasm which is the very ultimate beginning of life. But 1t Is complicated because we 1 don't know whence comes that begin ming nor do we yet understand with certainty the multiplication and evoiu- tion of the original beginning. Then, again, If Professor Burke has actually produced what he claims, we have no assurance that his germs will produce any higher forms of life. If it stops where 1t Is nothing has been gained and no advance has been made. | And in this. as in the other cases that have been reported, there remains that same old element of doubt. Those who have kept informed on the subject of i germs know the almost impossihility of destroying them. One of the most continuous and difficult fights the medi- cal profession has is to destroy or neu- tralize disease germs. If they could be destroyed absolutely, the task of the profession in combating disease would be a much easier aud simpler one than it now Is.
 1 Is 1t not possible. then, that Burke claims too much when he asserts that the soup or bouillon used by him was absolutely devoid of life? Is it not possible, or even probable. that in spite of all his care there remained. either in the fluid or in the tubes themselves, some form of life which was rendered active by the radlum injected into 1t? If this was the case, then his theory falls to the ground and he has not done what he claims And it Is certain that this element of doubt will remain, in spite of all efforts to remove it. In short, it Is not yet proven that Burke is a creator.