Evening star., 1941-09-02
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook of Science Progress
In Laboratory, Field
And Study
By Thomas r. Henry.

By Thomas r. Henry.
The sulfa drugs, of which nearly $50
tons were prescribed by American physi-
clans last year, may be affecting unborn
generations of the human race.
Sulfanilamide, sulfapyridine and sulfa-
thiazole, sovereign remedies against bac-
terial infections, represent perhaps the
most sensational advance of medicine in
this generation and have saved the lives
of many thousands frem pneumonia,
meningitis and streptococcic infections.
few months ago scientists of the
United States Department of Agriculture
started experimenting with them on
plants, with completely unexpected and
somewhat disturbing results.
They found, DR.. H. P. Traub of the
Beltsville (Md) experiment station has
just announced, that in heavy con-
centrations they cause changes in plant
form and affect the basic structure of
plant cells in such a way that new
species may be created. A few years
ago D.. Albert F. Blakeslee, Carnegie
Institution scientist and now president
of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science announced a
remarkable discovery. A drug known as
colchichine, extracted from the Euro
pean crocus, and an old-fashioned rem
edy for gout, would double the number
Of chromosomes, units of heredity, in
plant cells when seeds were soaked in it.
The potential significance of this dis
covery hardly could be overestimated.
1t meant that man could create new
species at will. He could telescope, so far
as plants were concerned, the slow
processes of evolution. Since then sew
eral other drugs have been found to have
the same effect
Ever since DR.. Blakeslee's announce
ment laboratories the world over have
been experimenting with colchichine
and its related drugs Already there
have been some remarkable accomplish
ments in the creation Of new, larger and
more disease resistant varieties of flow
ers and vegetables. Even greater ones
ton of a perennial wheat which will
come up year after year like grass.
The effect of colchichine on animal
cells is somewhat debatable. Much the
same results as those accomplished with
plants were reported last year by two
English biologists who soaked a rabbit
embryo in the drug Fantastic possibili-
quired close to 100000 years for nature
to differentiate lion from a tiger or,
to come closer home, white man from
black man. 1t is not beyond possibili-
ties that, when the technique is mas
tered, this might be done in a generation
with colchichine.
The startling thing about the Depart
ment of Agriculture announcement is
that, with plants. the sulfa drugs have
almost precisely the same effect
DR.. TrauD found that in dilute solu-
tions the sulfa compounds act as plant
hormones, or growth regulators In
stronger solutions they arrest normal
cell division and an increase in the nor
NAL number of chromosomes within the
cell. Kidney bean plants treated in the
Beltsville laboratory showed evidence
of the phenomenon of mutation, prob
ably the chief mechanism by which
nature produces new species. Leaves on
some of the treated plants were fluted
or twisted in a manner suggesting Sc
we're virus infection Other plants had
broader, thicker and less pointed leaves
and larger pollen grains.
To determine what had happened in
the plant to cause these abnormalities
in growth DR.. Traub examined under
the microscope stained sections of onion
roots which had been soaked in a con-
centrated solution of sulfanilamide. He
found that the changes we're in the most
intimate structure of the plant cells.
The normal number of chromosomes
were doubled.
1t has not yet been definitely estab-
lished whether the induced changes are
hereditary.
The implications are far-reaching.
Sulfanilamide acts through the blood
stream. Heavy concentrations are used
in treating human beings. Every cell in
the body is washed by the blood stream.
The effects on heredity might not be
expected to show themselves for several