The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 6, 1898, Page 21

THE SAN FRANCIS CO CALL, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 189S. Z1 —~ U THE HEADS LEGS AND OF ONE BUG ON TO ANOTHER = Z BUG AND PRODUCING QUEER FREAKS OF THE riost START LING KIND. RN ENRY E. CRAMPTON JR., an instructor in biology at Colum- bia Univ is a young man who evidently delights in upset- ting the fundamental lawys of nature. He has been experi- menting with insects, and has produced some of the strangest-looking = freaks ima able. ie has produced butterfies the like of which has never before been seen. Some of them have two heads and no others have two tails and no nd still others have taken the f even more curious monstrosi- And they have thrived during their brief butterfly existence, and now repose in g jars filled with alcohol, tribu to the supremacy of science ture. ring a lot more of these aks will be born, and then mpton hopes to pursue his in- tafls ves ms s further. He wants to breed them togeth with a view of studying the y of insect life. If satisfactory Its can be obtained this experiment will undoubtedly prove of ev greater interest than the mere grafting of the pupae. For you must know that the opera- tion of “bug grafting” must be per- for: d when the insects are in that embryonic state midway between the caterpillar and the butterfiy. In tha stage of their existence is at a very low ebb, and Mr. Crampton's experi- ence has shown that only 10 per cent of the operations are successful. The others die. Mr. Crampton Is 24 vears old. He is an e edingly modest young man, that there is nothing very Had it not been . Smith, entomolo- New Jersey State experi- ation, at New Brunswick, Mr. Crampton’s experiments might have long remained hidden from public view. There was a meeting of the New Jer- sey Microscopical Soclety last Monday evening, and it was then that Profes- mar Smith spoke of Mr. Crampton’s o - [ DING THE SEVERED INSECTS TOGETHER WITH WAX THE LAST WONDER OF PRACTICAL SCIENCE. S 4 discoverfes. He had seen the speci- mens, and he told how the grafting was done. His remarks created some- thing of a sensation. “1 confess id Mr. Crampton, “tha an Born. ed the gratting of tadpole: upon them when they were in the egg form. He met with success so far as the tadpoles were concerned, producing some strange specimens, but I do not think he ever ded in getting them’into the frog stage.” Mr. Crampton’s den is a curious little place, just the sort of a place in which one might expect to find all sorts of queer things. The shelves which lined the walls were filled with jars of speci- mong them being several of the ak butterflies. In one corner was a little chest of drawers. “That is my hospital,” remarked the voung entomologist, pulling out one of the drawers.. t was partitioned off into little compartments, in which were the pupae awaiting their birth into the freak butterfly existence. Heads of some had been grafted to the bodies of others were joined back to others; back, and all sorts of strange combina- tions had been effected. Mr. Crampton then showed how he did the trick. Selecting a couple of co- coons, which looked something like peanut shells, he split them open and extracted the worm, or pupa. He said that each one represented a different species of moth. . Suspended over a spirit lamp was a little vessel. containing paraffine wax, which is used in welding the parts to- gether. With a sharp razor Mr. Crampton Severed two pupae, placing the head of one on the posterior half of the other and vice versa. Then, dip- ping a little brush in the warm wax, he grafted the two portions. Ih a minute the wax had hardened, and then two embryonic monstrosities were pl ced in the Lospital along with probably a hun- dred other patients, who had suffered decapitation, without serfous resuits. Some of them gave a slight wriggle as the newcomers were admitted, al- though there was very littie semblance of actual life. One of the little chaps that was very much alive had no head at all. Most of them had exchangzed CRoOTON BuE WITH S PIDERS HEAD £ o 7 > heads and tai , but this fellow was en- tirely headl ‘Where that.organ had formerly been was just a daub of wax, and yet he had lived for two months. and will some day merge into a beau- tiful butterfly without a * ad. When the razor cut the pupa in half there was disclosed 2n interior, con- sisting of a fatty substance, and that was all. Mr. Crampton declared that the creature felt no pain, as there were no nerve cells. After the caterpillar ceases to exist and the pupa takes its place the latter subsists upon its own fat until such a time as it takes the form of the butterfly. The specimens which lived and which are now preserved in alcohol are curi- ous in the extreme. One is of tandem formation—that is, the posterior section of one pupa had been amputated, to- gether with the head of another. Then the two had been grafted in such a way that the head of one seemed buried in the body of the other. The two proved to be different varie- ties of moth, and the effect was very striking. There was one long body, with four pairs of wings. Other speci- mens had two heads, some had no heads, and some were joined together by tissues like the Siamese twins. It was one of these freaks that first crowned Mr. Crampton’s experiments with success, and he naturally regards it with affection, as his first born. The two moths are of the variety known as samia cecropia, and they are joined to- gether by a thin tissue. Both are per- fectly formed. “I chloroformed them an hour after they were born,” said Mr. Crampton. “You see, the uniting tissue was not very strong, and I was afraid they might struggle and tear themselves apart. Rather than have them do this, and ruin the specimen, I killed them. Some of the others, however, lived a month before I chloroformed them.” Mr. Crampton next showed a speci- men In alcohol, which he had bisected. It had originally been the head of one pupa and the tail of another. The body, after life.had become extinet, had been severed from head to tail, and the in- ternal organs were exposed - to view. Across the wound inflicted by the orig- inal operation the organs had fused and developed into a perfect organism. “I do not wish it understood that I am claiming any great scientific dis- covery,” said said Mr. Crampton, “for that would make me appear ridic- ulous. Nor do I wish the public to get the impression that T am merely doing this to produce monstrosities. My principal object is to study the color- ing of the insects, with a possibility of breeding them and learning something about their hereditary influences. “I want to produce certain color ef- fects in the wings. The color of a moth’s wings is the natural result of ‘a chemical decomposition of blood in minute cells arranged along the THREE-HEAPED MOSQUITO wings. I am anxious to produce the color of one moth in the wings of a moth of another variety. The haemo- lymph, or insect blood, is responsible for the coloring. “Next summer, when the inmates of the hospital become butterflies, with the blood of various species mingled in one body, I am going to try the effect of breeding the ks and watch for hereditary results. When I shall have accomplished this there may be some sense in talking about scientific discov- eries.” Mr. Crampton was ‘asked what he thought of grafting animals of a high- er order, but he was inclined to be non- committal. He didn’t see what bene- fits could be derived from such a course. He admitted, however, that it would be possible to graft the tail of a wasp to the head of a butterfly, or even to graft the glow of the firefly to the festive mosquito. Fancy having a mosquito come at you on a dark night carrying his lantern so as to pick out a choice portion of your cuticle for his nefarious operation! . “The whole subject,” said Professor J. B. Smith, in speaking of the matter, “is only in its incipient stage. It has certainly opened up new and startling avenues for scientific exploration. ‘Whether grafting of this kind can be done on higher animals and human be- ings cannot be said at this time. Sur- geons have made new noses by graft- ing the sKin from fingers of patients, but of course that is an insignificant matter compared to the grafting done by Mr. Crampton on his insects. No man can tell what his discoveries may lead to.” The discovery has some importance with regard to the surgery of the hu- man body. This gives it tremendous interest. Skin from one human being has been grafted on another. A portion of a rabbit's eye has been inserted in a human being. Mr. Crampton has done on a large scale on insects what has been done on a small scaleon men. But all animal life is closely allied, and what is true of an insect is to some ex- tent true of a man. There is little doubt that the bug grafting experi- ments point the way to more radical surgical operations on man. His experiments may be immediately useful to humanity. For instance, it may be posgible to graft the silk bear- ing apparatus of the silkworm upon the body of some much hardier and more. prolific caterpillar. There is no doubt that men have let . the insects have their own way pretty much. They have conquered the large animals, but the insects, as a rule, have been left in peace, while they have not behaved with reciprocal moderation toward man. In order to understand the nature of Mr. Crampton’s experiment better, the unscientific reader will find it useful to have a brief and clear account of the CAN THE DISCOVERY BE UTILIZED BY SURGEONS? general construction of the average in- sect. . Insects are distinguished from lower invertebrate animals by having the body divided into three parts—head, thorax and abdomen, and by possess- ing in the adult condition six legs, dis- posed in three pairs, and usually four wings as well. The head carries, first; the mouth or- gans, which vary much in different groups, the butterfly being only a drinker; and, secondly, the organs of sense, consisting chiefly of the eyes and antennae, the latter being a pair of long, pointed appendages, popularly termed “horns,” and possessed in a conspicuous degree by certain beetles. The thorax carries the legs beneath and the wings above. The abdomen carries no legs in the adult insect, but* has frequently in the female a more or less complicated apparatus at the end, sometimes looking like a long tail, and used for depositing eggs, and, therefore, called an ovispositor. Most insects pass through a series of transformations during the course of their fife, which are called, collective- ly, “metamorphoses.” They are, first, the eggs; secondly, the larvae, grub or caterpillar; thirdly, the chrysali§ or pupa, and fourthly, the perfect insect or imago. There are other characteristics of a less obvious nature, but the foregoing are in most cases sufficient for practical purposes, and will enable one to determine what animals are insects and what are not. The insects are subdivided, according to the nature of the wings, the feeding apparatus and the life history, into groups called orders. Every important order is represented among household insects, so that every man is in a posi- tion to study entomology. From most insects the head can be removed and the insect will retain muscular life for a considerable time. From others the abdomen can be re- moved. The thorax is always the most vital portion of the body. From these peculiarities it will be seen how greatly the process of grafting is facilitated in the case of insects. —_———— A FORTUNE FOR AN IDEA. M. Alfred’ Pickard, the genial Com- missary-General of the French exhibi- tion of 1900, is overwhelmed by sugges- tions for the grand attraction of the show, which are pouring in by thou- sands. A Parisian widow pleads with him to place on the top of the Eiffel Tower an enormous Japanese lamp shade, con- taining all the colors of the rainbow, so as to give the tower the appearance of a colossal lamp. Another inventor suggests a network of aerial railways, from which cars would be suspended to career through space like 50 many train balloons. raFtivg s MAKING INSECT I'ONSTROSITIESs nouseries WITHOUT HEADS, THREE HEADED FLIES AND BEES WITH THREE BODIES I'ADE BY THE INGENIOUS OPERATOR. THERE SEETS TO BE NO END TO THE NUMBER OF STRANGE BEINGS THAT CAN BE BROUGHT INTO EXISTENCE BY THIS METHOD. A native of Gers would have a Tem- ple of Beauty, with an exhibition of ty- pical Venuses from every country and every clime; while a gentleman of classic tastes would like to see the fa- mous Horse of Troy and the Colossus of Rhodes reconstituted for nineteenth century eyes. b A novel proposal is to exhibit 50,000 francs in gold pieces, and the same sum in pieces of silver. By an arrange- ment of mirrors these piles of coins are to be multiplied to 2,000,000; a scheme, no doubt, designed to illustrate the vanity of riches. A gentleman of soaring tendencies sends in a plan for an enormous aerial platform, suspended from four balloons on which speetators may make a tour of the exhibition grounds and view everything from the sky. Another device is for a pyramidal railway, a kilometre high, on the top of which is to be perched in some mys- terious way a true “City of the Clouds.” But of the wild, impracticabie schemes, possibly the fcllowing are the most amazing: A Niagara waterfall of the height of the Eiffel Tower, for which the, bold designer (an Englishman, by the way) submits alternative schemes. In the first, he has a mountain made “in steps,” to form a series of cascades. On each platean there would a repre- sentative village of some savage tribe. Up the slopes of this mountain a rail- way would be constructed, with sta- tions at each stage of the ascent. In the second scheme a bulldhas of the same height would be erected, down the face of which the torrent would pour; and each story would have its attraction, in the form of theaters, con- certs, museums or restaurants. The top of the mountain or edifice (as the case might be) would be connected with the summit of the Eiffel Tower by means of an aerial railway. Another project is to make two hills at a distance from each other, and to connect them by an aqueduct from which a sheet of water would fall, while one of the hills would be sur- rounded by a Moorish palace; and down its sides streams would trickle over rocks of glass. The last selection from these ingen- fous proposals is that of a Parisian who would construct an enormous um- brella, capable of being raised to the clouds or sunk deep in the bowels of the earth. ————————— The Longest Tunnel in the World.— When completed, the tunnel which is being cut through Pike's Peak, Colo- rado, will be the longest in the world. The main bore will be twenty miles ‘long, and connecting with this are sub- sidiary tunnels, with a total length of thirty miles. So in reality the task that has been put under way is that of dig- ging fifty miles of tunnels, and every foot of this vast system will be under Pike's Peak and the mountains that tower on each side.