RECOVERY OF YOUTH.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXX, Issue 4060, 29 December 1919, Page 3

RECOVERY OF YOUTH.

FRENCH PROFESSOR'S EXPERI-

MENT.

Interviewed by the Paris correspondent of the "Daily Mail" on his statement (briefly reported by--cable a few weeks back) .that the interstitial gland of the monkey grafted on an old man would bring back his exhausted force and lost youth,, and, therefore, prolong life. Dr. Serge Voronpff, Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Surgery at the College of France, gave 'further facts in support of his contention.

He had, he said, previously experimented with boats and rams twelve or fourteen years, old, which age corresponds to seventy or eighty yoaiv in. the age of a man. One old ram was in such a state, of, decrepitude as to suggest it had only a few weeks or months longer to 15 ye. Dr. Voro.noff took interstitial glands from a young ram and grafted them on to the-old'one, and two months later it underwent rejuvenation, and gave all the appearance of youthful vigour.

The doctor adds : "Deprived of the grafted glands, the ram returned :o its senile condition. Can these experiments, "which, are conclusive on .animals, produce the same result on man ? Certainly. I,t is frbrn the, monkey that we shall borrow the necessary tissues. What is the use of experiments on animals if they cannot be utilised in lessening human miseries ? I am convinced that physical and moral vigour can bel restored to old men by grafting on them the in^ terstitial glands of monkeys."

It Is interesting .to note that live years ago Dr. Voronoff grafted the thyroid body taken from a monkey on to a boy of fourteen, who was an idiot. The result was absolutely successful. Two years later th^ boy became completely normal, and in 1917 he went into tlie Army.