Evening star., 1950-12-29
Scientists Find Life
Can Be Kept on Ice
Tests With Chick EmbYos
Demonstrated at PurIey
By Thomas R. Henry

CLEVELAND, Dec. 29.-Life, at
fairly high level, can be kept on ice.
This was demonstrated before the
American Association for the Advance
ment of Science here today by Prof. B.
Luyet and his associates Of st. Louis
University.
They have taken chick embryos at the
point in development where the heart
has just started to beat. These are
frozen quickly by immersion in liquid
air at temperature of $40 below zero.
Fahrenheit. After they have been
frozen solid for as much as an hour
they are rapidly rewarmed by sudden
immersion in a warm salt solution. The
heart resumes its beat and continues
for several hours.
In another experiment, tiny worms
commonly found in vinegar are frozen
in liquid air After as much as "a hours
in the frozen state they are rewarmed
rapidly in luke warm vinegar. Within
a few minutes they begin to recover
and after an hour or so the majority
of them are intensely active.
Blood Cells Preserved.
Red blood cells, which normally are
destroyed when the blood is frozen, can
be preserved at $40 below Fahrenheit
If the freezing and melting are both
extremely rapid-that is, of the order
of hundreds of degrees a second.
The group has been working in this
field for the past Is years, starting with
the simplest possible examples of life
thin leaf sections and one-celled organ
isms They slowly have advanced their
technique to higher forms, up to the
chicken heart and the vinegar worms.
The latter are many-celled and fairly
complex animals.
The experiments are based on the
physical principle that when substance
is frozen or melted very rapidly its
molecules have no time to rearrange
themselves into crystals. They pass
from the liquid to the solid state with
out any structural change. Such
freezing and melting leave undisturbed
the fine structure of living matter, so
that there is no interference with the
basic machinery Of life.
The technique is still far from the
stage where it can be applied to keep
ing higher animals on ice for indefinite
periods 1t even has been conjectured
that, in some fantastic future, man
might be put to sleep in this way for
day he was frozen. A somewhat more
practical idea sometimes advanced Is
that of preserving the germ plasm Of
one generation for the artificial inseni-
nation of future generations.
Burned bodies can tell strange stories.
This was stressed before the American
Association for the Advancement of Sci
ence yesterday by DR.. Frank r. Dutra.
professor Of forensic medicine at the
University of Cincinnati.
True cause of death usually can be
determined even If a body has been
badly burned, he said. If the victim
actually died from the fire the individual
nearly always will have inhaled smoke,
so that deposits of SCOT will be visible
in the windpipe. In nearly every large
fire large amounts Of carbon monoXide
are formed Examination of the blood
for this substance will reveal whether
or not the victim was alive after the
fire started 1f
If death was due to heat, there are
nearly always small hemorrhages in the
heart and brain. The blood will nearly
always contain significant amounts OF
carbon monoxide. If death has been due
to this gas, there will be significant
amounts. Other toxic gases that form in
some fires produce extensive inflan1ma-
ton Of the lungs.
Aid in Identification.
mot infrequently." DR.. Dutra said,
bodies recovered from burned build
ings are burned to such an extent that
ordinary methods of identification are
impossible. In such cases there are
methods of determining identity based
on examination of the teeth, the bones
and the interior of the body. In the
latter regard, for instance, it may bs
revealed by autopsy that the body was
that of a woman whose internal organs
indicated she was of menopause age and
that sometime previously her gall blad-
der had been removed surgically. This
would serve to establish partial identi-
flcation and the findings Of q healed
fracture of the left seventh rib might
complete the Identification even though
the head and teeth had been completely
burned away"