The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, No. 157Various
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 27, January 1904, No. 157
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
More weeks passed and still three or four of the larvæ lived, and four
full months after the original exposure I saw a larva alive and
wriggling while its contemporary larvæ in the other jar had long since
passed away as aged moths, leaving generations of moths' eggs and larvæ
to witness this miracle, for here was a larva, venerable among his kind,
a patriarch _Ephestia kuehniella_, that had actually lived through
_three times the span of life accorded to his fellows_, and that still
showed no sign of changing into a moth. It was very much as if a young
man of twenty-one should keep the appearance of twenty-one for two
hundred and fifty years!
Not less remarkable than these are some recent experiments made by M.
Bohn at the biological laboratories of the Sorbonne, his conclusions
being that radium may so far modify various lower forms of life as to
actually produce "monsters," abnormal deviations from the original type
of the species. Thus tadpole monsters have been formed from tadpoles
exposed four days after birth to radium rays. Some of these monsters
lived for twenty-three days, and would doubtless have lived longer had
they been exposed to the rays for a shorter time. No changes occur in
the tadpoles treated except at the transition points of growth, as on
the eighth day, when the breathing tentacles are covered by gills in the
normal tadpole, but are not so covered in the monsters formed after
radium treatment. These monsters take on a new form, with an increasing
atrophy of the tail and a curious wrinkling of the tissues at the back
of the head; in fact, they may be said to develop a new breathing
apparatus, quite different from that of ordinary tadpoles.
M. Bohn has obtained similar results with eggs of the toad and eggs of
the sea-urchin, monsters resulting in both cases and continuing to live
for a number of days or weeks after exposure to the radium. Furthermore,
he has been able to accomplish with radium what Professor Loeb did with
saline solutions--that is, to cause the growth of unfecundated eggs of
the sea-urchin, and to advance these through several stages of their
development. In other words, he has used radium _to create life_ where
there would have been no life but for this strange stimulation.
M. Bohn assured me of his conviction that we may in the future be able
to produce new species of insects, moths, butterflies, perhaps birds and
fishes, by simply treating the eggs with radium rays, the result being
that interesting changes will be effected in the colouring and
adornment. He also believes that, with greater quantities of radium at
our disposal and a fuller understanding of its properties, it may be
possible to produce new species among larger creatures, mice, rabbits,
guinea-pigs, etc. It is merely a question of degree, for if new types
can be produced in one species why may they not be produced in another?
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