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The New "Elixir of Growth" Which Develops

Gigantic Plants and Promises Part of


What Could Happen If Insects Werb Devel-
oped to the Size of This Giant
H. G. Wells' Fantastic Dream of
Caterpillar as Large as the
Woman It Is Shown At-
tacking.
a Race of Supe rmen and
Superwomen—But Which
Won't Make the World
Very Comfortable for
Average-Sized People

Science May Find It Possible With the Use of New Growth Chemicals
to Increase the Size of Babies to the Proportions of Giants. As Author Wells Imagined, This Would Causa
Much Embarrassment and Many Living Problems for People Who Retained Their Normal Stature.

^^^wglgjw
On Right, Rats the
Size of Ponies Way-
laying a Doctor In
One of the Episodes
of "The'food of the
Gods." '

"There were giants in the earth in those days."


—Genesis, 6;4.
Y
gaining control of quantities of these
substances, the experimenter is going to be
able to make any kind of man he wants. The
biologist of the future will have controls, within his
grasp that can produce the superman and super-
woman."
This statement the other day by Dr. Arthur C. Parker,
of the Rochester, N. Y., Museum of Arts and Sciences, is
authoritative indication that another of the fantastic
prophesies of the imaginative writer, H. G. Wells, may be
fulfilled.
In the Wells' novel, "The Food of the Gods," a couple of
scientists concoct a synthetic substance called "boomfbod"
which makes' people grow to be forty feet tall and has a
corresponding effect on all other animal life, as well as
Vegetation. any considerable quantity should be
ijj-S.Some of it was spilled, and It made rats grow as hlff a8 blown about by the wind, all sorts of
ponles'and. wasps-BO big that they droned around like air- distressing things might happen. Al-
planes and had to be hunted down withl shotguns. Hels as ready there are carnivorous, or man-
big 8s ISoa constrictors came out of the rivers and killed eating plants, such as the pitcher
sheep; and a plague of huge flies, spiders," ants and cock- plant, which are big enough to devour
roaches threatened to overrun the earth. Thistles and small animals like the rat—and if
weeds, as tall aa fir trees, and mushroomB and puff balls some of this new elixir should get to
.the size of haystacks played havoc with farm- lands. It them by accident, a plague of man-
could even produce monstrous caterpillars that would eating ones might result.
plunge right out of bushes and attack human beings. Any bigger people produced by
A new "elixir of growth," called colohlolne, just an- tho elixir would have bigger brains,
nounced by Dr. A. F. Blakealee, geneticist of the Carnegie of course, but that does Hot mean
Institution's biological' laboratory at Woods Hole) Massa- that their minds would be any bet-
chusetts, may never cause any such horrors aa that, but it ter. The size of the brain has noth-
has quite as remarkable possibilities. Made from a yellow
powder that comes from the -seed of a species of autumn ing to do with the quality of the
crocus or yellow saffron, It makes plants grow many times mind. So what good would It do
bigger, and stronger than ever before. No one imagines to use the elixir to grow a race of
that colchlcine will have the same effects on animals that giants unless there was a corre-
it has on plants but other substances exist to make animals sponding Increase in t h e i r brain
grow In similar extreme ways. Some of these are gland power ?
chemicals which biologists still do not know how to use, but What colchiclne does when it
someday they'may know. comes in contact with the l./ing
It ia obvious; however, that any sudden and radical cells in the seeds of plants is double
change in the size of plants, animals and humans might the number of chromosomes, the In-
present many disturbing problems such as some of those finitesimal particles in the cells that
described by Mr. Wells in his novel, and anticipating what govern growth and heredity. It is
might happen if the "elixir of growth" is not properly composed of chemicals that are much
handled, Dr. Parker has uttered the following solemn the same aa those In the hormones,
warning: or glandular secretions In animal
"Unless mankind soon learns how to know itaelf and bodies, which also control growth
master itself, its knowledge of the universe and Its mas- and heredity.
tery of energies may in the end contribute to the destruc- Through these chemicals science
tion of all. humanity Instead of its elevation." ' may at last have a grip on the steer-
Nature Already Had Produced ing wheal of evolution, and be able to
With colchlcine farmers might grow wheat aa tall as Giant Vegetation Without Any
pine trees, but If they did they would have to raise their produce at will almost any kind of
Help from Science, as Shawn by apeeiea, and what Is more important,
sons on the same stuff, or there wouldn't be anybody big This
enough and strong enough to harvest the crop. new species that will be able to repro-
Meat- duce themselves—for colchlolhe Is at least one chemical
A couple of forty-foot sons might be useful on a farm, Sating
but the way things are now, they would undoubtedly be an that haa an effect on the chromosomes.
Plant
expenslvcjuxury. They would have to have a special house Which New animals sometimes are produced by cross-breeding,
of their own, as big as a municipal auditorium, with beds Has like the mule, produced by crossing the horse with the
the size of barges. It would take the entire output of a Captured donkey. The mule haa some of the good points and also
fair-sized textile mill to keep them supplied with clothes, n Mouse. some of the faults of both. With a few generations of selec-
and the mother who kept their socks darned wouldn't have tive breeding, the mule might have been further Improved
much time for anything else. Their food would have to be until It was a much more valuable animal, except for ono
cooked In vats aa larg^ as water tanks. placed by s o m e- handicap—It cannot reproduce Itself. But one of the most
As they strode across the fields, every footprint they thlng tremendous. startling powers of this new elixir is that it gives fertility
• left would be a crater about three feet deep, and that would R a 1 Iroad coaches to infertile hybrids in the vegetable kingdom. Something
make the countryside Impassable for ordinary people, un- would have to boas may be found to do the same thing to animal hybrids such
less the giants stopped after every step and filled the big as factories and as the mule.
holes. Such Effects on Hnmnn Growth as Might Bo Brought About by Chemicals Wero Foreseen by a u t o m obiles the
size of ocean lin- With this elixir, farmers may be able to produce bigger
Of course, they would have to keep off the roads and H. G. Wells In His Fantastic Story, "Tho Food of the Gods," In Which tho Giant Farm ers. As for all the and better crops, and more meat, milk, •butter and eggs.
highways. If they didn't, the results would be tragic, just Boy Pictured Above by tho Artist Cyrus Cunoo, Having Grown to on Enormous Height, Causes But this will also produce more unemployment, and besides
as they were In Mr. Wells' novel when a farmer lad who Consternation by Blocking the Streets of London, and They Hud to Shoot Him. ocean liners now In
had been raised on "boomfood" set out to see London and e x 1 s t e n ce, they It may take eternal vigilance to prevent pests from getting
might bo saved by hold of the stuff and "Improving" themselves into bigger
finally had to be shot by the riot squad because every 200 feet and about the only playthings he didn't crush the ripping out the Insides and giving them to the children for and better boll weavlls and potato bugs.
time he put his foot down he was liable to crush people. moment he touched them were cannons. rowboats. In "The Food of the Gods," the "boomfood" was only
.One of the scientists In Mr. Wells' story started feeding If some new scientific'giant food should ever become aa And then, when the world had been built over, what effective from birth until maturity, after which it had no
"boomfood" to his son without telling his wife about It, and cheap as flour, and if everybody should start buying It and would happen to the exhausted fathers and mothers, and value. There is no time restriction on the new plant
to say ahc was surprised over what happened to her baby feeding It to their babies, the only way to meet the require- the uncles and aunts, of all this mamoth brood? It,would elixir.
Is putting it mildly. When the baby was six months old he ments of such a .rising and expanding generation would be be impossible for ordinary people, who would then bo little Among tho surprising effects of the new elixir is that of
broke down his baby buggy and had to be brought home, to make the whole world over, from the cradle to the grave. people, to keep out from underfoot, and they would have causing an annual plant, blossoming only once a year, to be
bawling, In a milk truck. First of all, of course, all the homes and apartment more trouble accommodating themselves to this big new converted Into a perennial, blossoming almost continuously,
By the time the baby was twelve months old he tottered houses would have to be torn dowri and huge ones put up world than Gulliver did in the land of the Brobdlngnags. Presumably, tulips, Instead of shooting up like rockets in
just one Inch under five feet; and hla affectionate clutch In their place, aupplled with bathtubs as big aa awimmlng So they would probably juat have to clear out and build the Spring and quickly shrivelling, might be Induced to keep
at the hair and features of visitors became the talk of pools, and everything elae on the same scale. But while now cities for themselves In uninhabited territory—If they on going like Roman candles all through the Summer and
West Kensington. They had an invalid's chair to carry him this waa going on, frantic public officials would have to be could find any. until the Fall frosta.
up and down to hla nursery, and his special nurse, a mus- building new schools In which even the cloak rooms would Mr. Wells didn't get that far In his story. He ends it In his other writings, Mr. Wells is credited with having
cular young person Just out of training, used to take him have to bo larger than a waiting room in a railroad station. after only about fifty of those giants had been produced by foreseen the possibilities that England might bo starved
fpr his airings In an eight horse-power hill-climbing motor Then all the streets and roada would have to be made aa the "boomfood," and has an army of little people besieging Into submission by a submarine campaign, long before'this
perambulator specially made to meet his requirement*. wide as an airplane landing field and paved with solid con- their camp. came painfully close to happening during the World War.
But they had to keep hiring new nursea, because aa he crete ten feet thick—and that would have to be done in a Scientists who try the new plant elixir or other "giant He also wrote an Imaginative description of the armored
crawled around the nursery, smashing-furniture, he bit like few short years, too, so they would be ready by the tlmo makers" on animals will undoubtedly take every possible "tank" long before anybody hnd tried to Invent one. And
a horse, pinched like a vice and bawled so loud he Just about those lively youngsters started ramping to school. precaution to prevent any of It from being scattered around now it seema that his "boomfood" waa another one of his
split the eardrums. When he was half grown he could leap The entire transportation system would have to DO re- uidlBoVlnHnatoly, n« happened with tho "boomfood." But If fantastic predictions which has come true.
, bjr AnicrlCJD Weekly, loc. Orou Drlltln IlhgMa I

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