ALL FOR TRUTH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 19 February 1931, Page 5

ALL FOR TRUTH

FEARLESS SCIENTISTS EXPERIMENTS ON THEMSELVES GRAVE RISKS RUN If anti-vivisectionists desired to select a patron saint they would probably chose John Burdon Sandersons Haldane. Most of his experiments are subjective. In his own luippy words, he is his own rabbit, Air Haldane is the Sir William Dunn reader in bio-chemistry at the University of Cambridge and the head of the genetical department at the John Lines Horticultural institution. He is ono of those rare scientists who can write brilliantly and wittily of his work in terms comprehensible by the people (says a writer in the Melbourne “Argus”). Before he became his own rabbit Air Haldane had to act as rabbit for liis father, Professor John Scott Haldane, the famous scientist and teacher, who wrote “Mechanism, Life and Personality.” Mr Haldane was used for harmless experiments when lie was aged four years. When he was eight years he began taking notes for his father in the laboratory. At the end of nine years he went down coal mines for his father, who was then director of the Doncaster Coal Owners’ Research Laboratory. This was dangerous work, sometimes done under rotten roofs and in had air, and with one eye fixed on a canary in a cage carried for the purpose of proving whether the air was breathable or not. On another occasion Air Haldane accompanied his father down a Cornish tin mine. They were crossing a plank spanning an abyss when suddenly their light went out. “Luckily,” said Air Haldane dryly, “one has no sensation of giddiness in the dark.” An adventure which amused Mr Haldane considerably was a short voyage in a French ship from Tilbury to Dunkirk. Tlie vessel was full- of rats, and the French authorities, who were in the throes of a plague scare, had asked Professor Haldane to test a new system of gassing rats. The forecastle was hermetically closed and tlie gas was turned on. When the forecastle was opened again Air Haldane and a friend of his own age amused themselves by plunging into the still poisonous air and seeing who could collect the most dead rats and cockroaches before choking.

LOCKED IN A COFFIN An experiment in which Mr Haldane took part at a tender age was one which necessitated his being shut in an airtight box, a sort of coffin, that left only his head free. This was done with the object of obtaining a quantitative record of expansion when the object was breathing a certain mixture of gas. His description of another experiment shows how li'ghlly Air Haldane regarded the risks which lie ran:— “When I was about 12 my father was very interested ill diving. There was some talk at the time of the dangers of going down to any considerable depth, dangers 'which my father pooh-phooed. He said that any healthy hoy could go down to 40ft, and lie proceeded to try the experiment with me. Aiv only training for this experiment was a short sojourn ill a compressed-air chamber, which taught me the necessity ol ‘swallowing’ when the pressure increased. If you do not do this you get a pressure ini the eardrums which causes a most disagreeable crackling. Next day 1 was put in a diving suit and sent down lo a depth of 40ft, where I stayed for half an hour. It was not altogether a pleasant experience, tor the dress was too small and leaked horribly, and by the time I was pulled up I was wet to the neck and most bitterly cold.” Air Haldane has persisted m his habit of experimenting on himself. During the war lie was employed on problems arising out of the ventilation of submarines. On one occassion be and a companion were voluntary imprisoned m a steel cyclinder seven feet high and five feet in diameter. The manhole was then closed and screwed down, and ail engine began to suck air out through a pipe. The air inside became very cold and filled with mist In five minutes it had reached a pressure corresponding to that of a mountain top 22,000 toet high.

IIIS SYMPTOMS Mr Haldane began to observe his symptoms. Ho was breathing rapidly and deeply, and his pulse was 110. His heart was like a pumping engine, but the breathing soon slackened, and he felt better. Rut lie began to wonder at liis companion; bis lips were purple, and he was making silly jokes, and was trying to sing. Mr Haldane found they should take a whiff of oxygen from port. His companion suggested that they .should take a whiff of oxygen from a cylinder which they had with them, and to humour him Nil - Haldane took a few breaths. The consequence was startling. The electric light seemed to become so brilliant that it appeared that the fuse would melt, while the noise of the pumping engine apparently increased tour-folu. At the end of half an hour the pumping ceased and the prisoners were set free, none the worse save for a slight headache. But Mr Haldane states that his note book, which should have contained records of his pulse beat, was full of statements —very illegible statements —to the elteet that he was feeling much better, hut that he believed his companion to be drunk. Oxygen, Mr Haldane says, has a great future as medicine. Properly administered, it may halve the death rate from pneumonia.

MAKING HIMSELF ACID On one occasion Mr Haldane wanted to know what happened to a man when he became very acid or very alkaline. Most of us know by unpleasant ex|icncncc what it is to be too acid, lhc acid stored by the digestive organs is hydrochloric, ami anyone who becomes too acid suffers from that peculiarly distressing form of indigestion known as heartburn. This has nothing to do with the heart, but the sensation is very disagreeable ; the commonest and most obvious remedy is an alkaline substance such as bicarbonate of soda. Mr Haldane and one of his colleagues made themselves alkaline by over-breathing and eating up 30y.. of bicarbonate of soda. The kings supply the body with oxygen and remove the carbonic acid which is formed by the process of digestion. Over-breathing rids the body of too much carbonic acid. 7 he consequences are curious and unpleasant. "Pins and needles” are felt in the hands, feet, and face; if the practice is persisted in, the hands become stiff and tiie wrists bend. On one occasion, after an experiment in over-breathing, Mr Haldane suffered for an hour and a-halt from spasms of the hands and face. U lien conducting an experiment of this kind the experimenter’s chief trouble is that he is very apt to tall asleep, so lie requires a helper to prod him into wakefulness. These experiments threw much light on a disease called tetanv, of which Hie symptoms are cramp of the hands, face,’ and sometimes the windpipe. ... , Achieving acidity was much, more dangerous and difficult. .Sitting in an airtight room, and so increasing the amount of carbonic acid i~ Oie blood

was one method. This ended in a very bad headache. But the result was only temporary, and Mr Haldane wanted something that would keep him acid for days at a time.

SAVED BABIES Mr Haldane decided to eat ammonium chloride, which broke up inside his body and liberated hydrochloric, acid. .He took an ounce a day for two or three days, and after that he took very short breaths. Mr Haldane’s blood lost 10 per cent, of its volume, his weight dropped seven pounds in three days, and his liver "went very wrong.” This experiment, which Mr Haldane has described in a paper entitled “On Being One’s Own Rabbit,” had valuable results, for since it was made babies suffering from tetany have been given small doses of ammonium chloride, which cures the disease within a few hours.

Many men and women risk their lives or lose their lives in the service of science. The members of the “poison squad” at the Federal Bureau of Chemistry in Washington hazard their lives almost every day. The squad consists of volunteers—all expert chemists —who test adulterated food products seized by Government agents by eating them under the inspection of doctors, who are experts in toxicology. More than one member of this devoted band have become seriously ill, and one (Robert Vance Freeman) died as the result of poisoning from adulterated food. The late Professor Maxwell Lefroy. whose chief triumph was the defeat of the death watch beetle, which does so much harm to old buildings, was killed in 1925 during a search for a new form of poison gas with which to destroy the housefly. Earlier in the same year he was nearly killed. When he recovered he was asked what led to the accident. His answer was: “I am surprised and sorry that the matter received so much publicity, because such accidents are part of the normal daily risk of our work, and we do not think very much about them.”

HER DEVOTION A splendid example of devotion was given by an English nurse, Miss Mary Davies, at the American hospital at Neuilly, in France, during the war. Dr. Taylor, of the Imperial Cancer Research Institute, had been experimenting with a preparation of quinine for the cure of that terrible malady gas gangrene, but ho had been unable to obtain any definite results with guinea pigs. Without saying a word to anyone, Nurse Davies took a room near the hospital, and two days later she sent a note to Dr. Taylor, begging him to come. He found that she had given herself an injection of the culture of gangrene which he had been using. Within two hours symptoms of gas gangrene developed." The doctor at once injected his preparation of quinine, and in 24 hours his patient was out of danger. Another nurse, Miss Clara Maas, of the American Ambulance, allowed herself to be bitten by a mosquito infected bv yellow fever. She died. Two others, who allowed themselves to be infected, died also, but their sacrifice led to the practical conquest of the disease. Dr. Houston, of the Metropolitan Water Board of London, drank raw Thames water which contained approximately 218.000,000 typhoid baccili to test a theory. Every week there are similar instances of self-sacrifice in the interests of science, but ns a rule we hear nothing about them. They are taken as a matter of course by scientists of all nations, and even when news of some desperate experiment leaks out the names of the experimenters are usually concealed. It is known, for instance, that several British laboratory workers inoculated one another with living cancer germs in order to test the theories of Drs. Gye and Barnard, but the names of these astonishingly brave men were never made public.