“WHAT IS LIFE?”

Otago Witness, Issue 3888, 18 September 1928, Page 31

“WHAT IS LIFE?”

LARGE AUDIENCE ENTHRALLED. British scientist’s view. i. LONDON, September 12., A large audience at the British Association’s meeting was enthralled by Dr F. G. Donnan (professor of inorganic and physical chemistry at University College, London), when he suggested that the long-sought link between living and dead matter may have been discovered as bacteriophage, a minute organism, the nature of which is being investigated. If life sprang from the non-living earliest forms of bacteria it must have been of the most minute character, which would be invisible through the finest microscopes, and would pass easily through the pores of a porcelain filter. These must be sought in filterable viruses. If we established continuity of the dimensions between living and non-living it would not be difficult to indicate the point at which it could be said: “ Here is life,” or “ There is none.” Professor Donnan said the researches by Professor Hill, of London University, indicated that he was on the eve of an astounding discovery—-fft the gate of life and death—and was bringing nearer the day when the scientist would be able to make a living cell. Professor Cathcart, of Glasgow, commenting on the foregoing, states: “You can .go on for thousands of years improving the delicacy and exactness of the measurement of life's apparatus without coming nearer to jjie solution of the central problem, namely, ‘What is life?’”

THE MEANING OF LIFE. RUGBY, September 12. Great interest was shown in an address last night to the British Association on “The Mystery of Life,” in which Professor Donnan, of London University, an eminent chemist, referred to the researches of Professor Hill, the English physiologist. It appeared from Professor Hill’s work on non-medullated nerve cells and on muscle that the organised structure of these cells was a chemo-dynamic structure, which supplied and therefore oxide, to preserve the organisation. The molecular structuie was always tending to run down, to approach biochemical changes and disorganisation, and it required constant oxidation. to preserve the peculiar organisation or the organised molecular structure of the life of a living cell. The life machine was therefore totally unlike other ordinary mechanical machines.

It was perhaps a little premature to say how far these results would prove to be generally true, but Professor Donnan said he believed that they were of enormous importance, and that for the first time in the history of science we begin, as yet a little dimly, to understand the difference between life and death, and therefore the very meanin° r of life itself. ”

Professor Hill, to whose work Dr Donnan attaches such great importance, is distinguished as a physician a mathematician, and a physiologist, and the technique of his physiological work has aroused immense admiration among his fellow scientists. As an example he is able to measure the increase of temperature caused by nerve impulse to one-millionth part of one degree.

DISCOVERY IMPROBABLE. LONDON, September 13. ' While scientists at the final meeting of the British Association and the public Vere still discussing Professor Donnan’s paper, which described Professor A. V. Hill as being on the eve of a discovery of astounding importance regarding a solution of the mystery of life itself, Professor Hill was found at a holiday retreat laughing incredulously at Professor Donnan’s sensational announcement. He said: “Professor Donnan is an old friend of mine. Some time ago I lent him a paper containing the result, of certain of my researches. He read into what I. .wrote far more than I at any rate would have read.”

Professor Hill frankly told the interviewer that he had not attempted to discover the secret of life itself and had no hope of ever discovering it. Life would always remain a secret. It had been stated that he was able to make a - living cell in his laboratory, but this was utter nonsense. His endeavour had been to find how the organisation of molecules in a living cell worked. Perhaps he had cleared up certain matters concerning a living cell that formerly were mysteries, but the actual spark of life was beyond our discovery. At the association Professor Cathcart, ft. friend of Professor Hill, described the extraordinary delicate machines that Professor Hill uses in his researches. One which is small enough to go into k wrist watch, measures variation to the millionth part of a degree in the temperature of the nerve of a frog. To protect his delicate-machinery from outside interference Professor Hill has sunk h three-ton concrete slab in the floor of his cellar, yet only Sundays are suf- • nciently free of outside vibrations to permit him to conduct measurements.

DEADLOCKIN’ CONTROVERSY. LONDON, September 14. A deadlock has been reached in the fcontroversy between the scientists, Professors Hill and Dunnan. The latter told the Daily Mail that he sticks to every

word in his paper, which was based on Professor Hill's own writings. He said: “ I regard the discoveries as of the greatest importance. If Professor Hill does 'hot, well, it is a matter of opinion. I am neither poetical nor picturesque when describing Professor Hill’s work, which leads to the understanding of a number of diseases like creeping paralysis and cancer, wherein cells of the body die.” Professor Hill reiterated that he is not on the eve of any astounding discovery, a id the Daily News says that the iayinen must take their choice.