SUPERMEN OF TO-MORROW

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1929, Page 6

SUPERMEN OF TO-MORROW

ALL GENIUSES AND NO ILLNESS

NEW YORK, May 3

“Y'ou shall be as the gods,” is the •promise oi Dr Oscar Riddle, ot the Carnegie Laboratory, Co.d Spring Harbour, New York, who in an address to die American Fliiiosopna-al Society at Philadelphia lasi mglit .said that the science 01 to-morrow nil be able to prouuce a rsuo of men immune from disease and endowed with genius. ’Jins new stature in the nle of man will be attained by the use of “supermedicine'’ derived from knowledge now being gamed through experiments on other animals, experiments which, Dr. Riddle explained, have completely changed the mu lire of ceitaiu animals, birds, and insects in the laboratory.

“On the streets or cross-roads the man of to-morrow,” said Dr. Riddle 10 his astounded audience, “may meet a man-made giant or a man rendered specially resistant to d..sense, or a man of overpowered intellect, all specially perfected by the knowleugc, skill, and effort of man himself. The capacity for phvsicial growth, continued the American scientist, “wili doubtless first be exercised) by docto"'s on those of small stature, and hilt, there is every reason to expect tluii they will be able to add a cubit or Lyp to the height of everyone.” . “A LITTLE THYROID.” Turning to the reasons for his belief in tlie superman of to-morrow, Dr. Riddle, illustrated the tremendous change that scientists have already made in the development of tho Salamander from a water into a land animal. Jll its native locality .in Mexico it is breathing by means of gills, but when fed with a little thvriod tissue it is developing lungs and becoming allogethor a different animal. He cited .lie doubling of tne size of rats and the changing of the sex in frogs and birds. How this will be achieved in detail Dr. Riddle did not explain but be hinted that it would lie necessary to work for this future greatness of man through parents and through the childhood of individuals. To produce the necessary changes in the race it will lie necessary to bring about specific

.-lianges (before birth, in childhood, during adolescence and some in later life. “It will lie a recurrent work,” concluded Dr. Riddle, “necessary in every generation, just as is. the work of education and of medicine.”