Ravages of Old Age Kept At Bay

Prof. Julian Huxley Checks Senility for 19 Generations of Worms.

REVIVES ANCIENT PROBLEM

Elixir of Life So Long Sought in the Middle Ages at Last Been Found, but, Alas! Only for Flatworms -- Case of Regression Cited.

London. -- Popular interest in the oft-discussed question whether or not it is possible to keep old age at bay indefinitely and correspondingly prolong the span of life has been revived by Prof. Julian Huxley of Oxford. Julian is a grandson of the great Huxley and inherits no inconsiderable measure of his talent for painstaking scientific research.

"The common-sense view of the life cycle, drawn from the observation of man and the familiar animals," said Prof. Huxley, "is that it proceeds always and inevitably in a definite direction, with a definite plan. The normal life cycle of man, for instance, is as follows: The individual starts as a minute single cell, then follows a period of rapid growth, accompanied by differentiation, then senility, and finally death, which supervenes as a natural phenomenon, even if not through disease or accident."

Process Not "Irreversible."
Experiments had shown, however, that this process was not irreversible, he said, and was not inevitably similar in all animals; that it was possible to modify the rate of growth and the length of the period of growth and thus prolong life.

"It has been shown," Prof. Huxley continued, "that by alternately starving and feeding planarian flatworms they can be kept not only within certain definite limits of size, as was to be expected, but also within certain definite limits of age. One animal has thus been kept of the same age--that is, the same lively activity, the same form, the same type of behavior--for a time during which the rest of the brood have passed through 19 generations; a period which, translated into human terms, would take us back to Chaucer. Thus, age does not merely depend on the lapse of time; it is the expression of internal processes.

"The elixir of life so long sought in the Middle ages has at last been found--but, alas! only for flatworms."

Cites Case of Regression.
As an illustration of reversal in mental life Prof. Huxley mentioned that in some shell-shock and neuralgia cases the patients revert to an earlier stage of mental existence, having the minds of children in the bodies of adults. "The most striking case," he said, "was that of an Australian soldier who reverted to the condition of an infant, unable to walk or talk, and taking no food except milk. This is known as mental regression."

Professor Huxley held that numerous other examples showed that the irreversibility of the life cycle was only apparent and that the ordinary type of life cycle had been adopted as the most convenient but not as the only possible method of grappling with existence. In the case of mammals the normal life of rats had been prolonged about 40 per cent.

"Observation of life process," said Prof. Huxley in conclusion, "has given way to experiment as the chief method of research and experiment is leading to control."

--The Bessemer Herald, Bessemer, Michigan, April 13, 1921, page 4.