The Beginning of Life.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXXXVII, Issue 11713, 18 August 1902, Page 2

The Beginning of Life.

The editor of the American "M'Clure's Magazine" seems to have the gift of securing suggestive, interesting, even sensational articles in modern science and invention. In the March isffaei the researches and discoveries of Dr Jacques Loieb. and his colleague, Dr Matthews, of Chicago Umversitv, are discussed. It is impossible in a paragraph to do more that indicate the scope of what the writer believes Dr Loeb has discovered. For instance, he brings forward evidence that "there is no complex structure in the germ* cells from which, the lower animals spring, but that their varying farm is simply a reaction between a specihe lind of protoplasm and the physical forces of light, heat, contact and chemlsm, which mould in this way or that." The statement is, also made that the beating of the heart is not due to some mysterious influence on the nerves, but to the presence of a minute quantity of certain salts. The "ions," as the electrically-charged atoms are called, act, and cause ,the heart as a muscle to contract. The negative charges set them agoing; the positive charges stop them. The ultimate cause of muscular action of all lifei-processes is said to be electricity. Examples are given in which the professor started life in eggs without the addition of sperm-cells, but by chemical means. The main action of food in the body is the production of electricity. The body is in some sort a dynamo, and food is of value according "to-the electricity it affords. Wei hare heard something like this before. But have we got* any further into Nature's secrets; what- lies behind the play of physical forces, and what are they? —"Chambers's Journal."