Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1891 — ANIMAL LIFE SUSPENDED. [ARTICLE]

ANIMAL LIFE SUSPENDED.

Carious Experiments with Frog) and the Spawn of Fishes. Familiar instances of suspended vitality, or rather latent, are afforded by seeds, which may’ be kept for yearwithout showing action, bat are yer* capable of_being recalled to the. exorcise of the functions of fife, says La Monde de la Science. Other instanceare afforded oy Ibo lower organisms. Which will remain dry and sterile for _ indefinite periods, to, be brought into * full activity at any'tihie by supplying the due degree of moisture and warmth. Coming up to the higher forms of life, the same phenomena are usually manifested in insects, one of the normal conditions of whose life—the nympha or chrysalis state —is characterized by the exhibition of the external apper.ranee of death. During this stage thrvital processes are tempered down till only enough are in effect to maintain a merely vegetable existence; yet the insect is capable of slight motions when subjected to a shock or pressure. Tibduration of this apparent death varies according to the species and to external conditions. There are speciethat require two years of incubatioi. before going throught heir metamorphosis. Others pass to the perfect state in a few days. Butterflies demand a cer tain degree of heat, below which they will not issue. The opening of the chrysalis takes place naturally when these atmospheric conditions are realised. If the season is late the hatching is also late. Hence xve can prolong the duration of the chrysalis slate indefinitely by properly adjusting the temperature, delaying to that extern the metamorphosis of the imprisoned mummy into the free ami winged insect. Reaumur, by putting chrysalides in an ice-box, was able to keep them alive and retard their development several years. Going up higher in tho animal series, eggs, yvhich are analogous to the seeds of plants, present a remarkable example of retarded life. One of the most interesting features about them is the independence of their vitality, yvhich persists ey’en when the individual that has produced them, and within whose organism they are still contained, has ceased to live. This fact has been recognized in pisciculture, where artificial fecundation has been successful with eggs taken from dead fish. The persistence of life in frogs i* very long. Spallanzani preserved some frogs in a mass of snoyv for two years. They became dry, stiff, and almost friable, but a gradual heat brought them back to life. Toads have been shut up in blocks of plaster, and then, having been deprived of all air except what may oenetrate through the material, and of all sources of food, resuscitated several years afterward. This question presents one of the most curious problems that biological science has been called on to explain. The longevity and vital resistance of toadare surprising. Besides tho experiments yve have cited, nature sometimepreseuts some already made, and vastly more astonishing. Toads are said to have been found in rocks. Such cases are rare, but it yvould be as unreasonable to doubt them as to believe in some of the miraculo .s explanations that have been made of tue matter. The phenomenon is marvelous, it i* true, but it is supported by evidence that we are not able to coctcst; and skepticism, which is incompatible with science, will have to disappear if rigorous observation shall confirm it. The toad was observed in one case in tinstone itself and before, recovering from its long lethargy, it had made any motion. One of these toads was presented to an academy, with the stone which had served it as a coffin or habitation, and it was ascertained that the cavity seemed to correspond exactly with the dimensions and form of the animal. It is remarkable that these toad-stones are very hard and not at ail porous, and show no signs of fissure. The mind, completely baffled in tinpresence of the fact, is equally embarrassed to explain how the toad could live in its singular prison, and how it became shut up there. M. Charles Richet had occasion to study this question some mouths ago, and came t<> the conclusion that the fact was real. observing that even if. in the actual.condition of science, "phenomena were still inexplicable, we were not warranted in denying their existence, for neyv discoveries might at any time furnish an explanation ol them. “The true may sometimes not be prob Able.” But science takes accounting of the truth, not of the probability. ,