Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-06-13
FIND signs OF
STATEBETNEEN
LIFE and DEATH
Experiments at Johns Hopkins
Indicate that There May be
Suspended Animation
or Latent Life
GBy Latest MALL

=
BALTIMORE third state be-
tween life and death, a state of
latent life or suspended animation,
has been suggested by series of ex-
periments recently made in the psye
theological and astrological laborat0r.
les Of the Johns Hopkins Medical
School. These experiments, which
have been under way for number OF
months show, it is believed, number
of steps between life and death.
The layman sees no intervening
Estate between life and death, but the
Investigations made show in apparent
ly dead organisms, phases OF depress-
ed vitality so closely resembling death
as to be indistinguishable from it. Orr
ganisms having every appearance of
being lifeless have nevertheless again
manifested vital characteristics.
Bacteria, the lowest organisms.
have enormous powers of resisting
condition that tend to death. Those
/ OF various diseases have been shown
!, in the laboratory frozen at the tenn
lperature of liquid air, or $50 degrees
below zero Fahrenheit. They do not
die as a rule, and often survived and
RETAINED their specific vital pathogenic
characteristics.
Freezing Saspends Animal Life
/ There are instances where such
Ieold FLOODED animals as frogs, snails
and fish have had their. lives suspend
ed by freezing, sometimes SO thor
!oughiy that their intestines can be
taken out and yet on being "thawed
out after a period of weeks. revive
most actively.
In the Warm-blooded animals, even
imam himself, one does not find such
IextTeme instances of supPFession OF
vitality, the experimenters say, as in
the case of the lower organisms, crea-
lures with more sluggish and there
fore less easily deranged metabDlism.
Hence the theories are not yet appli-
cable to human beings.
The interesting inference from all
these cases of latent life of suspended
animation is thatJ though vitality
cannot be said to have vanished, yet
| the organism during all the time of
lIatency shows none of the signs of
1.-The possession of vitality It is not
taking food, oxygen or water; it is
not giving out carbon dioxide or water
| or other chemical results of bodily ac-
tivity. 1t is not moving of its own
volition; and in the higher animals
both the heart and breathing actiyi-
| ties are in allegiance.
!, No state could be, it is said, more
! like death Latent life" not sleep,
is the true image of death. Reyiva-
hi1ffu lis fhnrofnro life io 10
pressed, masked, but not abolished.
Some Successful Experiments. !.
Recently some very interesting and
successful efforts were made in the
medical school to revive the appaT-
emily dead heart of an animal, as ex-
planned by DR.. Alexis Carrel, who re-
Gently lectured before the student
body here. In about five cases out
of ten the heart of living animal,
for example, chicken, took on re-
newed energy several hours after
death. Immediately after death, the
heart was frozen and kept. A few
hours later it was resuscitated by
massage.
No claim is made that after death
life can be restored, but in many in
stances where life is thought to be
extinct it is only masked, and it re-
mains for the scientist to discover
through experiment whether he is
dealing with death itself or with ia
tent life"
In this connection it is recalled that
a scientist recently announced that
it might be possible to resuscitate
Capt. Scott, the British explorer, who
was frozen as he was returning from
the South Pole.