Evening star., 1941-09-23
Of Stars, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

| past few centuries. This was revealed to
the American Association for the Ad-
vancement of Science, meeting here to-
day, by DR.. Carlos Monge of the Univer-
sity Of San Marcos, Lima, Peru.
The Peruvian physician referred espe-
cially to the dwellers in the high valleys
of the Andes, of whom he has made an
| intensive study. They differ from the
rest Of mankind, he pointed out, in
these respects:
| The heart is larger in all dimensions
and performs about 20 per cent more
| work.
The pulse rate in the majority is slower
i than go beats minute. The normal
rate at sea level averages 72 beats a
minute.
There is no close relation between work
and heart beat. After eXperimentally
doubling the amount of exercise the pulse
actually was retarded.
Blood has higher capacity for COM
bining with oxygen. The maximum oxy-
gen capacity of persons who go into the
mountains from the loWlands never
reaches even the lower limit of the
mountain-born.
At least so per cent Of Andeans are
stronger than men at sea level.
The most striking difference of all, he
pointed out, is that men and women who
go into the mountains from the lowlands
become sterile. The mountain born have
high birth rate
While the reason was not understood,
he said, the capital of Peru was removed
from Jauja, $1,000 feet above sea level,
to its present site, Lima, in 1899 because
livestock failed to reproduce at the
higher altitude. The Spanish conquerors
of the city of Potosi, $4,000 feet high,
produced no offspring until the settle
ment was more than so years old
Adaptation to a high altitude never
comes quickly, DR.. Monge said. There
is usually a stage of acute chronic
mountain sickness, which either kills the
victim or results eventually in acclima-
tization After this it will be equally
difficult to become adjusted to the low
lands again, since the whole physiology
of the body must be changed.
The mountain dwellers, he pointed out,
become essentially prisoners of the clouds.
The struggle of life" he said, ''obliges
them to come down. Every year about
10000 men come to sea level for agri-
cultural work, but after about three
months they go back They never stay
on the coast, no matter what it offers
them. Like the swallows, Andean men
have the sense of returning home"
The development of this new type of
men, he stressed, may be of Importance
in high altitude aviation Of the future.
Age, death and sex come into the
world together.
First traces of all three are to be found
among these single-celled animals, the
protozoa, far from the simplest forms of
life which presumably are possessed of
eternal youth and Immortality.
The beginnings were described to the
ment of Science meeting by DR.. Herbert
S. Jennings of Johns Hopkins University,
dean Of American biologists.
Many single-celled animals and plants
near the roots of the tree of life on earth
reproduce and, at the same time, restore
their own youth simply by splitting in
two. There is no known ASSOCIATION be-
tween different individuals. Higher in
the scale of evolution what might be
considered sexes develop. There are
eight sexes in one species of paramecia,
a form Of protozoa. They appear to de-
pend upon minute chemical differences.
Masses of the same sex type, composed Of
millions of individuals, are found.
This is somewhat like the condition
found in the body of higher animal,
such as man. In the protozoa, however,
each cell remains an individual animal.
The masses-known as "clones"-come
together as groups of individuals.
But" said Prof. Jennings, "all becomes
changed with the phenomena of aging.
The first indication of this lies in the
fact that the individuals of the very old
clones no longer produce vigorous young
when they mate. Many of the young
die. period arrives in which conju-
CATION results in the immediate death
of all the individuals which mate, or in
the death of all descendants after two
or three fiSsions, or less In this later
period, If a young and vigorous clone Is
mated with an old one, it means death
to all descendants of either parent.
"The effects of aging later become still
more pronounced. The very old clone
no longer reproduces vigorously even by
fssion Multiplication takes place only
very slowly. Many Of the individuals
die. The clone can be kept alive only
with great difficulty. Finally, in spite
of all efforts to keep it alive, all the in
dividuals that belong to it die. The old
clone has become extinct.
"The clone may be considered a unit,
as the individual body is the unit in
higher organisms. Both the clone and
the body are composed of many cells.
Both show periods of youth, adolescence,
maturity and age. In both, all the cells
are normally of particular sex type.
Different clones, like different bodies,
are of diverse sex types. The clone is
like body in which the component cells
do not remain together, but are scat
tered In space and time"
1t may be significant, DR.. Jennings
pointed out, that in masses of very SIM
liar organisms no such aging process
Is found So far as can be seen from
;fa q. al