LINDBERGH'S WORK AS A BIOLOGIST

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1936, Page 27

LINDBERGH'S WORK AS A BIOLOGIST

i On a table in a small room of the Danish Biological Institute in Copenhagen recently a curious, alchemicallooking pump swished and clucked, spurting a red, watery fluid througa the small arteries' of a cat's thyroid gland, severed from the body of, its host a short time before.

The gland,, a dime-sized piece of ;yello wish-pink tissue from the neck, lived and continued to. secrete the chemical substances with which, in life, If .regulated 'the body's rate of fuel consumption, '' says.'.", the "Literary Digest.". .:, . : \. ... . ' It was a medical miracle few but biological experimenters have ever seen, adds the writer. Behind the' apparatus, dressed; in a surgeon's white: smock, stood the man ; responsible for it, Colonel1 Charles- A. Lindbergh. He explained the mechanism to knots of fascinated scientists attending the International Congress of Experimental. Cytology, while Dr. Alexis Carrel, world-famous biologist, interpreted his words in French.

The room was so small that only ten scientists could be admitted at a time. About.2so saw the demonstration, the second great event in Colonel Lindbergh's career; his initial appearance before a scientific -body.

Recently he flew to- Copenhagen with Mrs. Lindbergh to help Dr. Carrel set up the" "robot heart," a glass pump that duplicates the action of the human heart and-lungs, enabling experimenters to keep tissues alive indefinitely outside the body.

But scientists were saying, after viewing the pump", that Lindbergh's work as a scientist would probably be remembered long after his flight to Paris is only a dimly-recalled event in aviation history. They were surprised that a flyer .could turn with such versatility from' piloting an aeroplane to mastering the intricacies of the laboratory. ' To' this day none but the principals know whether it was Dr. Alexis Carrel or Lindbergh himself who suggest-' cd the team work in Dr. Carrel's laboratory that produced his series of, biological inventions. What interested Colonel Lindbergh

most was Dr. Carrel's experiments with living tissue. The biologist had kept bits of bodiless flesh alive for long periods; one piece of chicken heart, more than twenty-four years old, is still growing and beating.

What Dr. Carrel needed was a. pump that would duplicate the action of the human heart and lungs, at the same time sending "blood" pulsating at regular intervals into living tissue. Like the human circulatory system, it would have to be "closed," so no contaminating bacteria, could enter the stream. It would also have to permit the escape of carbon dioxide and, other wastes and add oxygen.

In 'the course of five years Lindbergh made five different types of pumps. An early one was operated by a rocking motion, like the twirl of a Roman candle. Oxygen was mixed with the "blood" in a spiral glass tubing in which .the gas and liquid currents ran counter to each other. In the latest design, compressed air operates the pump, driving a pistol of oil. A battery of Lindbergh's pumps is now at work in Dr. Carrel's laboratory at the Rockefeller Institute, feeding living spleens, hearts, livers, glands of chickens and rats. Scientists, watching the growth and operation of these organs, are learning secrets of cell growth and reproduction. They hope to solve some of the greatest biological mysteries; how diseases attack the cells and how the cells fight back; what causes cancer, why organs and bodies grow old and die.

Recently Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh sat unobtrusively in the back of the Great Hall of historic Christianborg Castle while Dr. Carre], speaking in French at the opening session o£ the Congress, declared:

"Modern' technique now realises what old-time biologists only dared' dream.

.: "It is now possible to study living cells where- our ancestors studied / only dead .tissue- ".:..":'' ' ■ ' .

"The''robot heart1 is one of the most valuable means of help, created through the ingenuity of Charles A. Lindbei'gh;" ' " ■