HEALTH COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 76

HEALTH COLUMN.

The Latest Wonder of Science. —The Mystery Called Life.— Man is on the eve of a totally new development in his notions of the mysterious thing called life. This is due to Dr Alexis Carrel, of the Rockfeiler Institute for Medical Research. Dr Ledoux thus describes the new revolution in the Outlook: “At the Rockefellow Institute it was found that small fragments of organs severed from mammals and placed in a. plasma medium drawn from an animal could bo mad© to grow under their gaze, between hollow glass covers, entirely separated from their original owner. Heretofore no one would have guessed that a fragment of a kidney, for instance, separated from the animal, could be kept indefinitely alive (although )t might he preserved l from decay), and still less that it could bo made to grow under glass. —Some Amazing Experiments.—

"Yet these experiments have proved that kidneys and glands, the marrow, bones, and cartilage, and even the skin, will thus live and grow, under certain conditions, as if still endowed with some of the life principle C;F their living owner, thou.gh severed from him."

Professor J. B. Tingle, in the Independent, says that '.'lt having been thus proved that organs may be removed from the body and kept 'potentially alive' for weeks, a further step naturally suggests itself. Can sueih organs be caused to grow outside the body ? The most recent work of Dirs Carrel and Burrows answers the question in the affimative.

"Portions of tissue were removed from warm-blooded animals immediately after death. The tissue was sealed up, kept at the temperaiuro of the body from which it was taken, and supplied with 'food.' This food consisted of liquid squeezed _ from, tho body of the same animal: it _is termed 'plasma.' Under these conditions, after a time, the tissue began to grow. Often its growth wae mucih more rapid than it would have been had _ the tissue remained undisturbed in the animal's body, because in its new environment it was getting much more food than it would have obtained normally.

"A 3 the tissue grew the new parts resembled tho parent ones. Cartilage grew cartilage, fragments of kidney grew cells such as are found only in kidney, portions of spleen reproduced the pulpy material such as is present in that organ. "When some of t|he newly-grown tissue was removed and placed separately, with fresh plasma, it continued to grow just as before. It did net require tho parent tissue to direct it. It follows, therefore, that it is possible to grow two generations of cells outside the body from which the original tissue has been taken.

"Those experiments open up an important new field for investigation and furnish a new weapon of extreme value to those engaged in the fight with cancer, The skilled worker can now actually follow with his eye the reproduction of cancer cells, and, by carrying the conditions and the food which is supplied to his cancerous material, he may hope to.discover tho factors which help" and those which hinder its growth." "Thleso experiments diemonstra/te, to quote from the report of the experimenters, that adult tissues giow easily outside of the bed v. The cultivation of normal cells would "appear to be no more difficult than tho cultivation of many microbes. This discovery, to 1 evert to Dr Ledouxfl estimate of its. importance, is possibly the first step in the direction of making artificially new tissues or even the nuclei of organs to bo grafted upon or to replace such as may become diseased in the human system " Exenise ami Digestion. The effects of exercise on the digestive organs is always beneficial provided it be iivticiously timed. To rush off after a full meal to any form of exercise is injurious, because it diverts the stream ot blood to the muscles instead • of leaving it free to help the stomach and its associated organs in the work of digestion. But if,, after a, short period of rest, .exercise be indulged in it aids the later stages of digestion and promotes the absorption of the imutntivo portion of the food which has been taken, by quickening the circulation, and increasing the movements of the diaphragm b.j a quicker rate of breathing. The activity of tho liver is also stimulated by bodily activity, and the increased, consumption <X the energy-supplying constituents of tooa, such as fats, sugars, and starches, relieves the liver of any trouble in dealing with accumulations of them. The man who habitually goes in for some rational form of exercise ought to have no trouble wiCn his liver; if he has I should say at once that there is something wrong with the food he lives on.

—The Effect of Brain-work.— Exercise in a mental sense —that -is, brainwork—will retard digestion or maw it a painful process if begun immeditaely on tihe top of a full solid meal. The man or woman who at any time may be paticularly busy and unable to allow proper time for meala must feed' lightly while at work, and postpone the heavy dinne-: till to 3 work is done. The reason for this is that tho brain while in a state of activity roquiries and draws bo itself the blood, which is therefore not available for the stomachs needs. A quarter of an hour at least should be spent in repose after a meal, not necessarily in sleep, but simply in doing nothing that requires bodily or mental effort This is not laziness, but sound sense, and will give greater value to the exercise that should follow the period of quiet. Aphasia. Certain forms of brain disease affect the speech in .different ways, which to the ordinary observer may suggest paralysis, but which are in no way connected with that. Sometimes the patient loses the power of willing the combined movement? which so to produce speech. He can read to himself, but not aloud, write, understand all that is said to him, but as far as spceca goes he is dumb. In other forms ot the disease the person loses his memory so that ho can neither read, write, nor speak. He may retain a few words, which are rased without any sense of their meaning; he can also repeat -words dictated to him, and will appear to understand their meaning. Another man will lose the .power of writing, not from paralysis of hand or finsrera, but because he is unable to put his ideas wlhioh may be quite clear, into writing; he may be .able to speak and read perfectly, but on taking up a pen he find it impossible to write a simple connected, sentence. A strange form which this bram trouble takes is that a man will suffer no impediment ir. his speech, but will constantly substitute one word for another, frequently without knowing it. He may be unable to say the correct word and simply uses another without hesitation, although it may make nonsense of his statement, or bo may use another word that has some relation to the one wanted 411 theso affections are usually grouped under tho general term aphasia, or inability to speak, and sometimes no treatment is ot any avail, though in other cases (rood food. absence of all excitement, and the use ol tonicn may effect a cure.