THE FLEA'S STRENGTH FOR MAN?

Evening Post, Issue 86, 11 April 1936, Page 21

THE FLEA'S STRENGTH FOR MAN?

According to Mr. Haydn, the proprietor of the performing flea circus, as reported in the "Cape Times," a flea can jump 200 times its own height and draw a load up to 5000 times its own weight, writes E. G. Bryant in that paper.

On this basis, and making no allowances of any kind, a man in good training should be able to spring to a height of 1000 to. 1200ft—reaching the top of Table Mountain in four bounds, and push a load of some 250 tons, say, ten passenger coaches, along a level surface! •

The flea, of course, has six legs instead of two only and does not walk upright; again, its hindermost pair of legs are developed to. a degree not equalled by any other living thing, even the kangaroo and the spring-hare being far behind it in this respect.

Making every possible allowance, however, for the above differences, it is obvious that the muscular powers of the flea are far in excess, proportionally, of course, of those of any human being. ' The finest trained athlete in the world can barely spring to his own height, while to push a balloon-tired motorrlorry, only some twenty times his own. weight, along a smooth road demands a person of unusual strength, let alone to pull it! ■ Even the muscular development. of old Father William's jaw in the parody, who in consequence of arguing law cases with his wife could "finish the goose with the bones and the beak," would fall short of the flea's powers.

These comparisons would appear to indicate that there must be some spe-

cial quality in the muscles of the flea that enables them to produce results far in excess of the muscular fitness of other creatures. Bulk for bulk the flea's musles are perhaps a hundred times as powerful as our own. There must be a reason for this vast difference. It can hardly be a matter of diet alone; the flea, of course, feeds exclusively on blood, and ,as the saying goes, "Blood is life"; this alone cannot surely account for everything.

Muscular effort means, the expenditure of energy, this, energy being supplied by the breaking down of complicated substances in the fibres into simpler ones, waste products, whicn are carried away by the blood stream. It would seem that some constituent or constituents of the muscles of the flea are of such a nature that their sudden decomposition produces energy in enormous amount, sufficient, in fact, to enable the flea to perform' the feats of strength and agility which it is known to be able to do. Scientific research has produced, many wpnderful results; what if this special substance could be isolated and then analysed and, finally, introduced by sonic means into the muscular system of men' and perhaps horses? i: What races, and what Olympic sports we should see then; men, and wpnien, too, springing over 'ordinary ' housetops would be quite an ordinary sight! After ail, there is promise of interesting results from the investigation here suggested and there, seems no impossibility in its execution; ■ even if onjy partially successful it would be of scientific value. '