Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 January 1902 — CHICAGO PROFESSOR CLAIMS TO HAVE STAYED DEATH’S HAND. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHICAGO PROFESSOR CLAIMS TO HAVE STAYED DEATH’S HAND.

$7? N announcement made by Prof. Jacques JLoeb at the University of Chicago. is to the effect that on a minute scale the secret of eternal life is in the of mankind. Dr. Loeb delivered an address at the fourteenth annual meeting of the American Physiological Society and described a series of experiments with which he had been occupied. These were with the eggs of the lower marine animals, especially those of the sea urchiu, and the professor’s paper was entitled, “The Prolongation of Life of Unfertilized Eg gs of the Sea Urchin by Potassium Cyanide.” Dr. Loeb maintained that his experiments prove death to be caused by the work of an active agent in the cells of the body and not by the decay of the tissues. His object was to annul the activity of this agent and he claims that he was successful. Unfertilized eggs of the sea urchin were placed in a weak solution of potassium cyanide and abandoned for several days. In ordinary conditions an unfertilized egg dies in a few hours, destroyed by the death agents born with it. At the end of several days the eggs were again examined and were found to be still capable pf fertilization and of producing healthy animals. In explaining the results, Prof. Loeb said that the “mortiferous processes” were due to the actions of certain ferments of an unknown nature, whose destructive tendency was counteracted by the potassium salts.—Chicago American.

PROF JACQ UES LOEB.