The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 6, 1903, Page 1

VOLUME SAN FRANCISCO, FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 1903. PRICE FIVE CENTS. PROFESSOR JACQUES LOEB BELIEUES THAT PERFECT SOLUTION OF PHENOMENA OF LIFE IS ONE OF SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILIT OUTBREAK 1S THREATENED IN CHINA AND WITH IT A CARNIVAL OF MURDER Empress Dowager and the Grand Chancellor Are Said to Be Plotting the Death of Emperor Kwang Su and the Extermination of All the Foreigne rs MAN WHO DOMINATES THE ORIENTAL EMPIRE, THE NOMINAL | R AN IAL WHO IS IN LEAGUE WITH THE EM- | S8 TO OUST ALL THE FOREIGNERS. - — —— - It B. C., March 5. to advices from ¢ g an outbreak, and| 2 arnival of murder ex- the Boxer outbreak, is re- o y as immunent Correspondents of Chinese papers are sending columns f the duplicity of the Em- wager and of the threat- The North China News, one of the best in- urnals of the Far East, as received advices that the Em- press Dowager and Yung Lu, the i Chancellor, are known to ng the movement of Tung in Kansu. On the au- of a Chinese “of high lit- uk” at Peking, a Shang- hai paper says that while the Em- Grar ]!'Tf“ Dowager - is issuing edicts [ commanding reforms on western lines and. pretending to initiate re- forms, she is secretly sending in- structions to Viceroys and Gov- ernors prohibiting "the inaugura- | tion of foreign methods in their jurisdiction. The Empress is also said to be sending notifications to some Viceroys that Tung Fu Hsiang is to be aided in marching his army to Peking to escort Pu Chun, son ;of Prince Chun, and ex-heir ap- | parent to the throne. On their arrivale Kwang Su, the present | Emperor, is to be made away 1\\'ith, the Chinese corre- ? spondent. The representatives of | the various foreign powers and all | foreigners in the &pital, as well says |as in the provinces, are to meet the same fate without distinction. | | The report is current among ilhcu] Chinese merchants that the | object of the coming of Leung Kai Chew, first lieutenant of | Kang Yu Wei, to this continent |is to accumulate funds for the | rebel movement now going on in | Southern China and to arrange | for the shipment of arms and war munitions. for the rebels. Native papers just received by local Chinese report that the lead- er of the rebel movement in South |China in Canton is Leung Mo Kwong. Local Chinese point out that it is interesting to note that his family name is the same as of Leung Kai Chew, who arrived with his party by the Empress of India. They also point out the fact that, like Kang Yu Wei, Leung Kai Chew is a Cantonese. Leung Kai Chew has circulated a pamphlet in South China in which he advances the opinion that the people of Kwangsi and Kwang- tung, the seat of the insurrection now prevailing, should secede from China and establish a king- dom made up of the two Kwangs. OFFERS ROBERT BACON TREASURY POSITION " President Asks Member of Morgan’s Banking House to Become Sub- Treasurer at New York. WASHINGTON March 5.—President has offered to Robert Bacon Pierp Roosevelt of the firm of J it Morgan & Co. the office of Sub-treasurer of the United States at New York, made vacant by the death of Conrad N. Jordan. Mr. Bacon has the offer under consideration. Bacon is a personal friend of President Roosevelt, having been his classmate in Harvard, and he has been a frequent guest in the White House, although | frankly differing with the President at mes on his policy with reference to truste. He has been planning a yacht- ing trip to Europe this summér, but will beve to forego it if he accepts the office. ¥0PEB-ANB'I MOTHER SAYS | HER SON IS INNOCENT | Mrs. Clough Asserts That Conductor f ‘Was to Blame for the Es- mond Wreck. | TUCSON, March - 5—-Mrs. Clough, | mother of the young telegraph operator | whom the Southern Pacific officials and two Coroners’ juries hold responsible for the disastrous collision which occurred near Esmond recently, resuiting in the | 10ss of eighteen lives, has written to a local newspaper that she has secured | proof positive that her son is Innocent of | the - charges preferred against him, and | that Conductor Parker of the westbound | passenger was mainly responsible for the wreck. . Parker was exonerated by the company. | at the time of the wreck, but later was | relieved. Clough disappeared the day | after the wreck and has not been heard of since. It is said his mother knows of SINGING EVANGELIST 5 IS STRICKEN BLIND Ira D. Sankey Loses His Eyesight . From Effects of a Severe Cold. NEWCASTLE, Pa., March 5.—Charles G. Bankey of this city has just recelveq word that his cousin, Ira D. Sankey, the world famous evangelist, has been strick- cn blind at his home in Brooklyn. The trouble came from a cold, which settled in his eyes. It Is announced that hjs sight may be restored after prolonged treatment. . @ il @ his whereabouts, but refuses to tell Friends and relatives of Glough are taking steps to vindicate him and claim they have secured important evidence which throws the responsibility for the wreck on others, | |that the Pope passed a The Chinese papers report that. POPE'S REST 5 BRAOKEN DY ILLNESS Pontiff a Sufferer From Dysentery at Night, 'Physician Says Cold . of His Holiness Grows Worse, -— e Applications for Audiences | as the Vatican Have to Be Refused. | el fal Dispatch to The Call. | | LONDON, March 5.— | A dispatch to the Central |News from Rome says restless night owing to| lan attack of dysentery. {Dr. Lapponi stated that {the cold, from which his | Holiness is suffering, has lalso become slightly | worse. ‘ | [9/OME, March 5.—The Pope | remained abed all day. He | was visited frequently by his | physicians. His cough is abating, {but his feebleness persists not- | withstanding the fact that stimu- | lants are administered to him. Requests for audiences with his Holiness pour in from all direc- | tions, but, of course, ‘they are re- { fused. The English pilgrims will | probably not be received Monday. | It may be, however, that the Pope | will see the Duke of Norfolk and |a few others the English Catholics. “l am pcri‘ec&\' confident that | the Pope will ré®over,” said Dr. | Lapponi to-night, “though a long rest will be necessary. He has| gastric trouble, but I have great | faith in his marvelous constitu- tion.” of o MEDICAL MEN APPREHENSIVE Distinguished American Doctors Think the Pope May Not Recover. NEW YORK, March America's fore- most medical men fear for the life of Pope Leo XIIL Their opinion is voiced by Or. eorge F. Shrady, who said to-night: “When a man is ninety-three years old he must look forward to one thing—death. That is the Pope's age. We all hope he may be preserved in many years of use- tulness, but we fear that with a bad cold, as cabled—which probably means the grippe—and a severe attack of gastritic catarrh, he may not last long. His only hope is to pin his faith to his physiclans and to abide implicitly by their instruc- tions. “If his condition is correctly reported, it is precarious, to say the least.” o ] DUELISTS QUIT THE FIELD WITHOUT FIRING A SHOT Tragedy Is Averted by Reason of Nerve Failure on Part of the Principals. YERINGTON, Nev., March 5.—Dayton was the battlefield chdsen for a most unique duel Sunday night. The prelimi- naries came off without a hitch, but the principal event was stricken from the pro. gramime eitlr r because of the contestants' inability to count or because of nerve faij. ure when the critical moment arrived, Pete Milisap and Will Paramore, two residents of Dayton, had some words which led to a quarrel. After wrangling for some time their friends urged them to «got down to business” and settle the af- falr, expecting to Witness only a flstic en- counter. Fists, as weapons, did not seem hard enough to satisfy either of the prin- cipals. So a duel was proposed. Pistols were chosen and the men were to fire at forty paces. Millsap and Paramore met. They turneq and started to step off the distance. Final- ly they had but a short distance to go and the spectators held their breath, The fortieth footprint was made and many of the nervous closed their eyes. But the tragedy was ayerted. Instead of stopping the principals kept on walking, increasing their pace at every step. The seconds fol. lowed. After a while the parties lost sight of each other and all concerned re. turned to their homes. Since then there bas been no duel talk in Dayton. b [ explainable, but which now are _— E cannot allow, however, that there is any obstacle to our complete conirol, and in consequence, to our knowledge, of life phenomena. “W ognizes the control of life phenomena to be the great problem of scient tion, will come to the same conclusion. Authors who have come to the oppo Every one, I believe, who rec- pessimistic view have placed too gteat faith in some hypothesis or have fallen victims to a poor or wrong interpretation of the facts. It is self-evident that the pessimistic view can only hinder, but never further, the progress of science.”—Professor Loeb. | ific investiga- ’ | i ' o e m’é‘) JAQUES DISTINGUISHED HEAD OF THE NEW PHYSIOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, ‘WHO DELIVERED A REMARKABLE ADDRESS ON THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE BEFORE THE HARVEY ! CLUB AT BERKELEY LAST NIGHT. Rt | The - stomach is able to digest proteid. foods when it does not digest itself. The reason for this has recently been shown land found that a.substance could be extracted from the cells of the stomach | proteid material will not allow it to be acted upon by the pepsim of the stomach. * presence of this anti-fernment in the cells of the stomach prevents them from digesting themselves. After death, when this subject decomposes, the stomach will digest itself.”—Professor Loeb. | o NOTHER question which for a long time has puzsled biologists is why the stomach does | not digest itself. introduced into it, yet by Weinland. Wein- which when added to » . The e — o - . Famous Biologist Optimistic in Diew of Recent Progs ress With Puzzling Questions. ERKELEY, March 5.-Dr. Jac- ques Loeb, head of the new physiology department of the University of California, stated to-night in a lecture before the college Harvey Club that believed a complete chemical solution of the pheno- mena of life was not outside the realms of sclentific possibility. Wide as the gaps are which must be bridgged before knowledge sufficlent is gained to create life in the laboratory, Dr. Loeb declared that he saw no reason for calling it impossible. He fllustrated this by referring to discoveries made in sclence years ago, which were then un- slly ex- plained. Sclentists, sald Dr. Loeb, are working on the problem of the creation of life by chemical processes and he added that the solution.was one of the pos- sibilities of the future. This is the first lecture he has delivered on his great work since he entered the faculty at the Uni- versity of California. Dr. Loeb's lecture was delivered in East Hall before the Harvey Club, which is composed of students in the depart- ment of blology. Many visitors were present at the lecture and dozens were turned away from the door after the room was filled. Dr. Loeb’s address was in part as follows: MUCH HAS BEEN LEARNED. “We have to go on the assumption that a life phenomenon has been explained completely as soon as it is possible to control it unequivocally by physical or chemical means or to repeat it in all de- tall on inanimate materfal. I wish to give a few examples which show how far modern physiological research has com- passed this uncertain life phenomena. “The fact that our body is able to oxi- dize, that s to say, is able to burn up food, as a chemist is under similar con- ditions outside of the body, belonged for a long time to those life’ phenomena which were apparently unexplainable. The conditions under which the chemist was able to bring about these oxidations were of a nature that would have de- stroyed life. ' Here wWe have to do with the life phenomenon which was unex- plainable but which has been recently fully expiained, especially through the la- bors of Ostwald and Bredig. NEGLECT CERTAIN REAGENTS. “The chemist was unable to bring about these phenomena of oxidation under the conditions under which they occur in the living cell because they did not utilize an important group of reagents, the so- called catalysors, which accelerate chemi- cal reaction through thelr contact or sur- face effect. The reason why these piay so important a role In the organism' depends upon the structure of the protoplasm. Protoplasm is composed of a microscopic foam structure and the surfaces between the walls of the foam and their fluid con- tents is enormous. “A second, and perhaps still larger sur- face, depends upon the fact that proto- plasm is a colloidal solution. It can be shown that the specific oxidation of ani- mal tissues® can be imitated with cer- tain metals, for example platinum, when they exist in a finely divided condition, that 18 having a large surface. The fol- lowing examples will i{llustrate my mean- ing: HAVE SIMILAR POWERS. “The oxidation of alcohol to acetic acld is brought about by the living aceti- tying bacteria. The same oxidation can, however, also be brought about by plati- num black. Furthermore nearly all the living tissues have the power to decom- pose hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen. Bredig has shown that plati- num and many other metals have the | however, stik closer than 'this. same property when in the form of se~ called collofdal solutions. The analogy is, It has | long been known that the oxidative ac- | tivity ‘of an animal tissue can be inhib- ited by certain polsons, for example, by | the addition of a small amount of prussic | acid. Bredig found that such smail | amounts of these poisons also inhibit the | catalytic action of platinum or hydrogen peroxide. Finally, it bas been possible to }make an aqueous extract from the living cells_or the celis killed in alcohol, the | agencles which bring about the charac | teristic oxidations within the cell, and 80 show that these agencles are connected in no way with the structure or the life | of the cell. | VEXED QUESTION SOLVED. “Another question which has for a long time puzzled blologists is why the stom- ach dces not digest itself. The stomach is able to digest proteld food when intro- duced into it, yet it does not digest itseir The reason for this has recently been shown by Weinland. Weinland found that a substance could be extracted from the cells of the stomach, which when added | to proyeld material, will not allow it to | be acted upon by the pepsin of the stom- ach. This substance belongs to the class of so-called anti-ferments, that is a group of bodies which by their presence Inhibit fermentative actions. The presence of this anti-ferment in the cells of the stomach prevents them from digesting themselves. After death, when this sub- stance decomposes, the stomach will di- gest itself. “For a long time, also, the instincts of certain animals were not capable of scien- tific explanations. It was a well known fact, for instance, that the caterpillar goes to the top of a tree to live on the young shoots which grow This