LIMIT OF LIFE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3241, 11 December 1930, Page 3

LIMIT OF LIFE

EXTENSION TO 120 Al\*D 140 YEARS. NEW STRENGTH FROM GLANDS. The possibility of the extension of human life to 120 and 140 years by the grafting of glands from healthy young monkeys to the human body, is visualised by Dr. Serge Voronoft, famous French surgeon, whose application of the Brown-Sequard theory of using animal secrations to supplement deficiencies in human beings has brought him world-wide fame, says the San Francisco Chronicle. “The chimpanzee, gibbon and gorilla have glands the same as those of a man,” Dr. Voronoff said. “They are w 7 hat we know as ‘superior monkeys,' their blood being the same as that of human beings. Of course, it is not possible to get men to sacrifice their glands for other men, but even if it w'ere possible, we should prefer the glands of superior monkeys because their ancestry is guaranteed to have been free of social diseases.

“The interstitial glands control other glands. More than that, they supply motive power to the mind and body. Therefore, where they have become useless, their stimulant secretions cease to flow into the arteries and the moral effects of increasing age march on.” YOUTH NOT DESTROYED.

The doctor pointed out that the grafting of glands would not succeed in making time turn backwards and turn aged men into youth, nor would it restore fecundity.

“In the interstitial glands,” he said, “there are two elements. One is for the life of the race; the other for the animation of the individual. By grafting interstitial glands, we merely l-evise and renew the energy of the individual. “I am often asked whether I can make men live for ever by continuing the operations. This I do not know. When a patient becomes old, I can merely graft again.” The gland specialist declared that most people who consulted him and had lived well-rounded lives felt .no desire to regain their youth. “Such dreams are absurd,” he said. “To think old people wish to regain their youth for the mere physical joy that comes of being young is erroneous. Even those who have that wish are seldom actuated*by the desires that are generally ascribed to them. No more than 5 per cent, of those who come to me to be operated on do so because they wish to make appeal to members of the opposite sex.”

The actual operation of transferring the gland from the.* monkey to the human being is not an expensive one, according to the gland specialist. The chief cost, he said, was the purchase of the animal from which the necessary gland was obtained. “I do not know,” he said, in conclusion, “whether grafting will enable- us to prolong life beyond the assigned to man by nature, but I am certain that it will enable us to reach these limits. Every year, in every country, the death is recorded of people who have reached the age of 100 and over. Those of us who die earlier at 70 and 80 cTo so, not because we have exhausted all the normal possibilities of life, but because we have become, old and feeble and unable to combat with the illness or illnesses which cause our death. “.Old age leads to death. By augmenting our vital energy when we begin to lose it, we increase our chances of life and acquire the possibilities of living at least the number of years to which man has right.- To be.strong and vigorous is the secret of life; to be feeble and wear is the cause of death. The graft of a gland taken from a young monkey in perfect health infuses new energy into our bodies at the commencement of old age, and will henceforth enable us to extend the possibilities of life to the extreme limit—l2o or 140 years.”