More weeks passed and still three or four of the larvæ lived, and four full months after the original exposure I saw a larva alive and wriggling while its contemporary larvæ in the other jar had long since passed away as aged moths, leaving generations of moths' eggs and larvæ to witness this miracle, for here was a larva, venerable among his kind, a patriarch Ephestia kuehniella, that had actually lived through three times the span of life accorded to his fellows, and that still showed no sign of changing into a moth. It was very much as if a young man of twenty-one should keep the appearance of twenty-one for two hundred and fifty years!
Not less remarkable than these are some recent experiments made by M. Bohn at the biological laboratories of the Sorbonne, his conclusions being that radium may so far modify various lower forms of life as to actually produce "monsters," abnormal deviations from the original type of the species. Thus tadpole monsters have been formed from tadpoles exposed four days after birth to radium rays. Some of these monsters lived for twenty-three days, and would doubtless have lived longer had they been exposed to the rays for a shorter time. No changes occur in the tadpoles treated except at the transition points of growth, as on the eighth day, when the breathing tentacles are covered by gills in the normal tadpole, but are not so covered in the monsters formed after radium treatment. These monsters take on a new form, with an increasing atrophy of the tail and a curious wrinkling of the tissues at the back of the head; in fact, they may be said to develop a new breathing apparatus, quite different from that of ordinary tadpoles.
M. Bohn has obtained similar results with eggs of the toad and eggs of the sea-urchin, monsters resulting in both cases and continuing to live for a number of days or weeks after exposure to the radium. Furthermore, he has been able to accomplish with radium what Professor Loeb did with saline solutions—that is, to cause the growth of unfecundated eggs of the sea-urchin, and to advance these through several stages of their development. In other words, he has used radium to create life where there would have been no life but for this strange stimulation.
M. Bohn assured me of his conviction that we may in the future be able to produce new species of insects, moths, butterflies, perhaps birds and fishes, by simply treating the eggs with radium rays, the result being that interesting changes will be effected in the colouring and adornment. He also believes that, with greater quantities of radium at our disposal and a fuller understanding of its properties, it may be possible to produce new species among larger creatures, mice, rabbits, guinea-pigs, etc. It is merely a question of degree, for if new types can be produced in one species why may they not be produced in another?
It remains to mention certain important services that radium may render in the cure of bodily ills, notably of lupus and other skin diseases. Here is a great new field full of promise, yet one that must be considered with guarded affirmation, lest false hopes be aroused. It is too soon as yet to say more than this, that distinguished doctors speak with confidence of excellent results that may be looked for from the radium treatment. Dr. Danlos, for instance, has used the radium rays on lupus patients at the St. Louis Hospital in Paris for over a year, and in several cases has accomplished apparent cures. The radium used is enclosed between two small discs of copper and aluminium, the whole being about the size of a silver dollar. The aluminium disc, which is very thin, is pressed against the affected part and left there for fifteen minutes; that is all there is in the treatment, except cleansing, bandaging, etc. Day after day, for weeks or months, this contact with the disc is continued, and after a period of irritation the sores heal, leaving healthy white scars. Some patients thus treated have gone for months without a relapse, but it is too soon to declare the cures absolute. They look like absolute cures, that is all Dr. Danlos will say, and if time proves that they are absolute cures, then radium will do for lupus patients all that Finsen's lamps do, and will do it more quickly, more simply, and with no cumbersome and costly apparatus. It may be objected that radium also is costly, but the answer is that radium will probably become cheaper as the supply increases and as the processes of extracting it are perfected. Furthermore, the effects of radium may be obtained, as already stated, by the use of indifferent bodies rendered radio-active, so that lupus patients may be treated with a piece of wood or a piece of glass possessed for the moment of the virtues of radium. And certain kinds of cancer may be similarly treated; indeed, a London physician has already reported a case of cancer cured by radium.
These are possibilities, not certainties, and there are others. It appears that radium has a bactericidal action in certain cases, and it would therefore seem reasonable that air rendered radio-active may benefit sufferers from lung troubles if breathed into the lungs, or that water rendered radio-active may benefit sufferers from stomach troubles if taken into the stomach. It goes without saying that in all these cases the use of radium must be attended with extreme precautions, so that harmful effects may be avoided.
Just as I was leaving Paris I learned of an interesting and significant new fact about radium, one that greatly impressed M. Curie—namely, that the air from deep borings in the earth is found to be radio-active, and that the waters from mineral springs are radio-active. This would seem to indicate the presence of radium in the earth in considerable quantities, and that would mean more abundant and cheaper radium in the not distant future. One of the things to be hoped for now is the discovery of a single simple reaction by which radium may be easily separated from the dross that contains it, and any day the chemists may put their hands on such a reaction.
And then—well, it is best to avoid sweeping statements, but there is certainly reason to believe that we are entering upon a domain of new, strange knowledge and drawing near to some of Nature's most hallowed secrets.