CAN MAN LIVE FOR EVER?

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2374, 31 December 1921, Page 1

CAN MAN LIVE FOR EVER?

REMARKABLE EXPERIMENTS

Can man live for ever?

Tlie question is being seriously asked (writes the Paris correspondent of (lie San Francis.ee. Chronicle). Paris is much excited over an announcement which, I am told, long ago was made in New York. This is of the fact that Dr. Alexis Carrell, the truly wonderful Frenchman, whose opportunity was given him by the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, has told something of the experiment which he began long ago at the New York Rockefeller Institute.

It was on 17th January, 1912, when Dr. Carrell, then in New York, took sixteen fragments of a chicken embryo eight days old, and, entirely separated as they were from all the vital organs of 'the chick quite separated, and indeed, from all else, placed them under certain favouraide conditions in gelatine, They were from the chicken-embryo’s heart and other vital organs. ALL 1)1 Ml) BIT ONE.

Nearly all remained alive for a short time. But by March only five fragments survived. Various accidents and bacterial infections affected and killed all of these but one by 2blh September. This tiny fragment was taken from the connective tissue derived from the heart of the chicken, and at the end of 10-1 days away from ils-organism it was -till “beating”— that is, regularly palpitating with life.

The discovery of this, which was announced, hut in a highly scientific, cautious manner, mi I ha t its significance should not he mistaken by (lie laity, but so that it might he used as a basis for deduct ion-drawing hv the scientific minds of the world, who were indirectly incited to give t houghl\lo ii, created a veritable sensation in all minds except the brilliant young Franeo-Americnn’s. lie was not surprised. He rather was astonished because he had not been aide to keep all the fragments alive.

Not only did ihL fragment live, hut its cells multiplied, which resulted in a steady if slow growth in size.

FRAGMENT STILL LIVES,

It never has ceased to palpitate and to vigorously grow, and the possibilities ibis opens up are vast indeed. The scientific mind, as a. matter of fact, hesitates at interpretations of them. The vistas which they open up are too farreaching. French scientific opinion recently, however, has reached some definite conclusions, which may he said to be among the most startling ever known since the birth of modern science. They are to the effect that it is now established'beyond any possibility of donbf that the tissues of which till animals, including human beings, are composed are, actually, immortal.

This is established by the proof that it culture from any animal kept away from all the fatal influences of which animal life at present is subject to, can and will live much longer than that animal itself can live. The life of Dr. Carrell’s chickenfragment is, to-day, greater than the life history of any complete chicken known to the records of (he chicken fanciers.

WHY NOT FOR MAN?

If indefinitely Inns' hfo 1S conceivable for a single cell, it should not lie inconceivable for a collection of cells, say lbe best French scientific thinkers, stimulated into deep relied ion by the Car re II experiment. All individual animals, including humans, are collections of cells, and nothing more than that. “The intelligence of the human being." Ellison has declared, “is the collective intelligence of the cells of which that hitman being is composed, as the intelligence of a city is the collective intelligence of the human beings which make up that city. The world will gel a right viewpoint of life when it begins to recognise that (he cell, and not the human being, is the actual individual. If we remember that, and deal with life problems as such, we shall get at the bottom of things far more quickly than we shall otherwise be able to do.”

When each human being takes of himself as good care as Dr. Carrell has taken of the fragments of chicken llesh, and establishes such community life as will make this possible, then men and women will cease utterly to die.