TO CROW MEAT ARTIFICIALLY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10957, 23 December 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

TO CROW MEAT ARTIFICIALLY.

The artificial production of food, by rcerelv chemical processes, has always iv-en a dream of the scientific man. A recent discovery brings this within tlie Mobilities, provided the chemist is al!<>ived an organic cell to start with. In ;i recent issue we reported in this -lecartment the noteworthy success of Processor W. H. Lewis, and his wife, of J./iins Hopkins, in causing cellular substances to grow indefinitely outside .>r tiie organisms to which they originally Monced. Dr Lewis now suggests that tiiis mav enable us to "grow meat" on s. commercial scale. Says The Dietetic ■ rid Hvpienic Gazette, quoting in part :r.m f.P.'s Weekly:— . •What Dr Lewis and Ins wife claim !••> have actually accomplised is this: Thev have taken pieces of chicken. phiced thenf in a saline solution and L-r.-.wn chicken meat without hindering »u~her growth, and the process can b*» repeated indefinitely. They also claim that the process can he applied to any ;t of flesh. Dealing witli the question ''■;' his discoveries, Dr Lewis says: 'The v;ilue of all these experiments which n v wife and I have conducted has seve-

rat different phases. For instance, it raav some day have a great commercial ~afue. There is nothing to prevent out from being conducted on a much larger scale. Suppose that you Lid a number of vats filled with saline solutions, and that in these solutions you put the muscles or other organs of various animals, not only while in the f-mbrvo, but even when the}- have reached the adult stage. There would lv large growths, and these would be f 'i:ble. In other words_, the salt solutions could be tnrned into incubators, to hatch, and from which pieces ot i-moryo chicks could be taken every day without hindering the increase of the supply.' "The possibilities conjured up by this statement are so great as to almost v.-rge on the grotesque. The idea of actually growing meat appears to offend tL> laws of nature, and yet science has { lone stranger things. The more im-n:i-diate good likely to result from the 'Lseovery Would be of a medicinal char;;r tor. It would be possible to transp'.iut organs of the human body in these "»iution>. to observe their growth, what ": «y feed on, What they secrete, the '': iiJiirs which are heneficial to them, and ti:o.<o that are dangerous. The way ".'ould thus be cleared for many important medicinal discoveries, as the discovery of the cure for many growths—'".rioer and tumor, for instance —would fc«:- greatly facilitated by discovering on T-h.it thr-y. feed. I do not think, howt'.vr. that- the day is likely to arrive yet "hen our butchers will sell home-grown *r.t-at manufactured bv the Dr Lewis process."