ANCESTRAL DINNER BELL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 24

ANCESTRAL DINNER BELL

Certain white mice in Russia—unlike tuman beings—are being trained to expect dinner when an electric bell rings. This would sound simple, but the point of the experiments is to determine whether the dinner-and-bell idea can be made hereditary—or in scientific, language, whether individual attainment is transmitted' For this purpose Professor I. V. Pavtov in his Petrograd laboratory, has employed three generations of mice. "With the first set" (according to the "British Medical Journal ) ,it was necessary to repeat the combination of ringing the bell and feeding 300 times m order to form a well-estab-lished reflex. The next generation formed the same reflex after 100 repetitions. The; third generation acquired this reflex after 30 repetitions, the fourth after 10, and the fifth after-five only." The professor, anticipates that one of the next generations of mice would show the food reaction on hearing the; sound of the electric bell for the first time.