LIFE'S ELUSIVE SECRET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 57, 9 March 1931, Page 17

LIFE'S ELUSIVE SECRET.

BRAIN CELLS BROKEN AND BUILT. Romantic stories that Dr. George W. Crile, of New York, has been attempting to create life in his laboratory at Cleveland were exploded at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Crile has been engaged on the more modest task of reducing cells to their constituent chemicals, then attempting to reunite them. He found that the only cells which had the power of reuniting were those removed freshly from the brain, and in addressing the association he explained that the research was undertaken for the jyirpose of discovering some physical principle which might account for the conversion of normal cells into cancer cells whose wild growth absorbs all their energy. Thus he thought more light might be thrown on the mysterious ravages of this great human scourge.

He broke down brain cells into their constituent proteins, then placed the separated substances in distilled water containing salts, this solution representing the watery Clements in which brain cells live normally. On some occasions he found the scattered materials reunited into microscopic objects having the same shape of cells. They consumed oxygen, gave off carbon dioxide, reproduced, themselves by division, showed the power of active movement, and were kept alive by feeding for ten weeks.

Some scientists present at the meeting thought that Dr. Crile's researches might bring a closer understanding of the mechanism of living things, but chuckled over the suggestion that it represented an artificial creation of life, whose secret is left just as deeply hidden as ever.