Evening star., 1941-01-01
HereditaryFighting
In Rats Studied as
Guide 10 Mankind
Scientists Are Told
That Possibly Same Law
Of lnbreedine Applies
BY THOMAS r. HENRY,
Star Staff CORRESPONDENT.

PHILADELPHIA. Jan. 1.-Evi-
dence that fighting may be heredi-
tary among rats - and possibly
among men who are subject to the
same general laws OF hereditary
was presented by DR.. j. P. Scott of
Wabash College before the American
Association for the Advancement of
Science here today.
He obtained rats from two closely
inbred strains which had been used
in cancer research. Into cages with
male rats of several such strains he
placed strangers Of the same breed.
The reactions were distinct and Spe-
cific in each instance. In one case
there was a rapid appearance of
anger in the rat whose cage had
been invaded. He sized up" the
stranger and then attacked Almost
this exact behavior was duplicated
particular breed. In another case
the host rat was a model of hos
pitality. He gave the intruders a
thorough nosing-over which seemed
to be very similar to grooming. One
male actually washed the strangers
head. They often followed the
strange mice around as they inves-
tigated the pen. Flufflng of hair
and labored breathing suggestive of
anger were not observed. They
never attacked but in two cases
seemed to fight back. In reply to
aggressive nudgings they turned and
licked or nosed the other mouse"
This turning the other cheek"
behavior, DR.. Scott said, was nearly
identical in eight experiments with
this specific breed. With other
closely inbred breeds there were all
sorts of intermediary behavior be-
tween these two extremes.
Reasons Toward Racial Line.
The behavior of the two extreme
stocks, DR.. Scott said, varied funda-
mentally in four reSpects-the ma
ture of the approach to strangers,
the distance maintained from them,
the internal chemical reactions
which produced hair fluffing and
labored breathing, and the actual
aggressiveneSs. If these four traits
were distributed at random in the
hereditary makeup of the rats IN
chances of getting any one OF them
IN eight animals would be only one
in 256 and the chance of getting all
four of them would be about one in
a million. Hence, he concluded. the
differences could not be due to
chance but must be fixed in the
racial line.
"One is tempted to apply this
conclusion to human beings ne
said. In the case of inbred mice
and men the hereditary mechanisms
appear to be the same. but the social
behavior and the system Of breeding
are very different. The effect OF
close inbreeding is to fix a COM
bination of genes which includes
many recessiveS Even allowing for
increased genetic variation caused
by relaxation of selection in certain
human societies. such gene COM
binationS must be rare in human
beings. It could be very tentatively
concluded that genetically caused
differences as extreme as those
found in the social behavior Of
inbred mice should be rare among
them
Demon Rum" to Ants.
Ants cannot take their whisky
straight-but they like it.
This was reported today by DR..
T. Cunliffe Barnes of Hahnemann
Medical College. Philadelphia.
He told of experiments to test the
similarity of ant society to human.
It is about q half-million years
older. II has developed the parallel
institutions of war, slavery and agri-
culture. But the insects have not
yet developed the corner saloon and
when they do. DR.. Barnes found,
it will be tragic
He found that the insects love
liquor. When it is provided for
them they sip it voluntarily. On
drink with per cent alcohol
whole colony first will become
extremely excited and then become
dead drunk" When the drink con-
tains from to 10 per cent alcohol
it kills the colony.
His experiments show beyond
doubt, Dr. Barnes said, that there
is an innate taste for the drug
among ants.
Bacteria get tougher as they get
older, it was reported by Drs. H. c.
Rentschler and Rudolph Macy OF
the Westinghouse Electric Co.
At one stage in their life cycle.
they found, these disease-bearing
organizations are from to 10 times
as hard to kill by ultraviolet radl-
alton as when they first develop.
This shows, they said, that direct
hit by a single photon, or particle
of light, cannot be considered as
fatal. The efficiency of radiation III
treating infections has been calcu-
lated on this basis in the mast