SOLVING THE MYSTERY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLI, Issue 71, 25 March 1907, Page 6

SOLVING THE MYSTERY.

DR. LEDUC TELLS HOW HE PRODUCES LIVING ORGANISMS FROM CHEMICALS.

For many years scientists have been attempting to .produce, life by spontaneous generation. By means pf radium and sterilised bullion placed together, Mr Butler Burke, of Cambridge, claimed some time ago to have produced-cultures which presented certain aspects of vitality, such as growth and subdivision. It is now asserted that Dr Leduc, a French savant living at Nantes, has really succeeded in producing a living organism by a chemical experiment.

The new discovery was communicated recently to the Paris Academy of Science by M. d'Arsouval, and has naturally aroused great interest among biologists. In order to obtain the personal explanation of his remarkable experiments, I called on Dr Leduc (writes E. Doceul, in the Daily Express,) and found him very disturbed byt the excitement aroused by his work, and considerably worried by the almost innumerable demands made upon his time by curious callers.

"I should require several secretaries,' 'he said, "to answer all the questions that are being put to me, but I shall be glad to furnish readers of the Daily Express with all the information I can."

Despite his almost white hair, Dr. Leduc is still quite a young man. He speaks slowly and quietly, with great clearness, and you feel while he- is sp9aking that he is watching you through his glasses to see if his explanations are understood.

""'lt is 15 years ago," he said, " since I began my researches into the cultuve of the artificial cell. All the investigations into the phenomena of .vegetable and animal life are aimed at (determining the physical and chemical forces that _ produce the forms presented by living beings. Directly or indirectly, life consists in a collection of physico-chemical phenomena, and the problem of biogenesis, or spontaneous generation; is a scientific problem. • ■'.." ■

.This problem of the spontaneous production of new life has been so far inaccurately stated. Those who have approached it by experiment have sought at once to produce a living being with all the complexity of its forms and of its many functions. But since biology consists in determining the ration, forces that produce a form of lire, it is more reasonable* to seek to reproduce that form by the sole play of these same forces without any intervention from already existing life. "It is from this standpoint that the problem of spontaneous generation ought to be regarded. It consists hot in seeking at once to reproduce a living being, but in seeking to direct the forces ofnature and thus to. reproduce separately the elementary forms of livHaving thus explained the general idea that actuated his work, Dr Leduc went on to speak of the experiments on the germination and growth of the artificial cell.

Into a diluted solution of sulphate of copper I let fall a ' drop' of syrup containing traces of ferrocyanide of potassium. The drop becomes covered with a membrane or ferrocyanjde of copper, which water can permeate, but which is impervious to the sugar. This cell to the cell of Traube, but differing from it because it not only has the faculty of swelling and increasing ,but also of putting out extensions like rootlets and litle stems, and one seems to see these extensions slowly growing."

REMARKABLE POWERS

The doctor then proceeded to illustrate his experiment,-- by dropping his various chemicals irto a test-tube. The cells formed began to grow with remarkable swiftness. Fragile tendrils shot out of the parent cells, terminating m shapes that resembled leaves, blades of grass, or miniature ferns. .And the doctor explained in detail how these " plants" possessed many of the characteristics of living organisms. While they possessed the power of nutrition and growth, they lacked the power of reproducing their species. They proved to be extremely sensitive to heat, cold, and light, and when -ivoimcied are able to cure themselves. "I have sought to realise the conditions of the seed, in the interior of which, during the period of germination, two forces (osmotic pressure and cohesion) are working," continued Dr Xiedue.

The contact of the ferrocyanide of potassium with the sulphate of copper produces the envelope. Under the influence of the difference of osmotic pressue betwen the 'drop' and the liquid, into which it is plunged, the water pentrates through the 'skin' of the envelope which the sugar cannot get through. "Thf cell gradually increases in size, until; after some minutes at one point oi the surface sprouts a bud, which is surrounded immediately by a 'skin' of ferrocyanide of copper. On the top of this bud a second is produced, on that a third, and so on. "Each bud represents a cell, and one sees_ the cells slowly develop in a straight line, one after the other", in order to form a hollow stem, of which the length can exceed by more than ten times the diameter of the fcefll which gave it birth.

FORMS OF GROWTH

The artificial cell absorbs into itself the substance necessary for its growth by the aid of which it produces a form many times larger than itself. It is easy to understand that the growth takes the form of a stem, because the last bud has always the weakest and thinnest membrane, and therefore gives way first under the development ol the osmitic pressure. " Sometimes during the experiment a small cell' is thrown off by the original 'cell' from which it detaches itself completely. One can see, then tins small ' cell' grow, bud, put out stems which, grow, and finally reproduce a form similar to that form which it has come.

Such,' concluded Dr Leduc, "is the whole secret of the growth of the artificial cell This growth is horizontal or vertical, according to whether it M n °v a glass Plate ™«• * tube. One cell can produce from 16 '-> 20 branches with leaves and poiir ■ and provided with terminal orgar ' t£S2l° r Sr-t^?* 1 ' resembling : i tendril or the head of a mushroom according to the composition of the luiiiKi m which the culture took place and the conditions of the growth