Lower Forms Of Life Research Articles

The "Discovery Scene" in Billy Budd

THE ''DISCOVERY SCENE" IN BILLY BUDD IN 1952, writing in the Pacific Spectator, Tyros Hillway made a surprising statemeIlt about Professors Coxe and Chapman's dramatic adaptation of Herman Melville's Billy Budd. According to Mr. Hillway, ... the final interview between Billy and Captain Vere could not have been what Coxe and Chapman make of it; for they have Billy going to his doom bewildered and still appalled by the fact that he must suffer. In the book, on the other hand, he has clearly come at this point not only to an understanding of his fate but even to a willingness to accept it. As for the exact words used by Captain Vere in explaining matters to Billy, Melville, indeed, leaves us in ignorance.1 Not only do I disagree with Mr. Hillway, but I also feel that the exact opposite is true: in the play, Billy Budd is no longer bewildered when he climbs to his death, and he has finally recognized his tragic flaw. In fact, Coxe and Chapman have made Billy a kinetic character, whereas Melville's is static. In the novel there is no evidence to support the statement that Billy ''has clearly come at this point to an understanding of his fate." On the contrary, when Billy forgives Captain Vere, he does so out of the same blind ignorance and naivete that have characterized his short life. Let us look at the evidence. In the novel,2 Billy is a virile, handsome, ingenuous, good-natured, competent sailor who is loved by his shipmates . Melville identifies him with Alexander the Great (p. 135), Apollo (p. 141), Hercules (p. 145), Achilles (p. 207), a Catholic priest (p. 139), "a condertmed vestal priestess in the moment of being buried alive" (p. 226), and "the young Isaac" (p. 252). All of these allusions enhance the figure of Billy, adding to his stature and suggesting to the reader that there is a symbolical level of meaning which is the heart of the story. To even the most superficial reader, the novel is filled with religious overtones, Billy being equat~d with no less a figure than Jesus Christ. The Christian imagery is especially evident at the end of. the book in the description of Billy's crucifixion. Unlike Christ, however, Billy has one obvious physical flaw-his stammering. Melville tells us that like the beautiful Georgiana in Hawthorne's ''The Birthmark," Billy has one imperfection-the inability to articulate when emotionally disturbed. But 'that is not the lad's only 1. "Billy Budd: Melvine's Human Sacrifice," Pacific Spectator, VI (Summer 1952), 342-3. 2. Herman Melvine, Baly Budd, in Melville's Baly Budd, ed. F. Barron Freeman (Cambridge , 1948). AU references to the novel are to this edition. 339 340 MODERN DRAMA February flaw. Billy also suffers from ignorance. Even Pip in Moby-Dick has more intelligence than Billy. The other sailors recognize this limitation and nickname him "Baby" Budd. The symbolic significance of his last name also reinforces this idea. Billy is an easy victim of Claggart because he is blind to the evil which the Master-at-Arms represents. He is unable to comprehend Dansker's enigmatic warnings. He is, says Melville, like Adam before knowledge (pp. 147 and 219). A close study of the figures of speech used to describe Billy reveals not only -allusions to the famous biblical, mythological, and historical figures already mentioned, but also references to various lower forms of life, namely animals and birds. Thus Billy is identified with a goldfinch (p. 137), a 'Dlood horse" (p. 146), a St. Bernard (p. 147), an "iiliterate nightingale" (p. 147), a heifer (p. 193), and a "young horse" (p. 201); at the court-martial, he has a look of "dumb expressiveness not unlike that which a dog of generous breed might turn upon his master seeking in his face some elucidation of a previous gesture ambiguous to the canine intelligence" (p. 241). . It is my contention that this canine intelligence is Billy's tragic flaw. His heroic virtues are apt to dazzle us into losing sight of the fact that "a barbarian Billy radically was" (p. 260:. Nowhere in the novel can I...

Combined therapy: radiation and chemicals.

Sporadic attempts to use radiation in conjunction with chemicals have been made (1, 5, 13), but it is difficult to assay either the clinical results or those obtained experimentally in lower forms of life, as for example Paramecium (6). Because of the poorly understood use of empiricism in treatment, it is necessary to dilate upon the empiric use of chemicals and radiation to insure a rational approach to the evaluation of combined chemotherapy. To understand this, one has only to review the difficulties which we, in our own specialty, have had in weighing the use of radiation, not only as to total dosage but also as to timing (fractionation) and assessment of the end-result. The empiric use of radiation in tumor therapy has been carried on for years, and to-day we have workable schemes of fractionation and a whole discipline by which we can produce results. The results, as time has passed, have improved only where the critical adjustment of dosage and dose rate has been carried out. What is to be expected when we superimpose systemically active chemicals on the local chemical effect produced by radiation? When we do this with a limited understanding of the effect of the chemical on the host, as well as on the tumor itself, the difficulties of evaluation are enhanced. Because systemic therapy modifies the host, a divorce between the effect on the host and the tumor is quite often impossible, and a further problem is introduced. Dosage rates of chemicals and timing are poorly understood and will be until we know more about, (a) energy exchanges, (b) modes of transport, (c) site or sites of action, (d) the concentration of the chemicals at such sites, and (e) whether or not their action is direct or indirect by way of other chemical processes, all in relation to the phase of cellular activity (mitosis or resting). We still do not understand the action of such drugs as morphine, yet we use them constantly. Incomplete knowledge, therefore, is not a contraindication to the use of chemicals, even though, because of difficulty of control, it places upon us as radiologists a clinical responsibility greater than we may like to assume. The radiologist may not be the one to prescribe chemotherapy for the patient with cancer, but its use in conjunction with radiation needs the government of the physician along with a knowledge of radiation effect. Who else, then, has the ability to shoulder the responsibility? It is necessary to look upon radiation as producing merely a localized chemical effect with a nonspecific mechanism of action mediated both directly and indirectly, locally. Radiation is the only “chemical” that we have today that is available for local, ablative use in cancer therapy. It exerts the only primary chemical effect that stops immediately when the transformer is deenergized. The analogy with antibacterial therapy is of interest.

Evolution of animal fats.

USING the theory of evolution as a general background, Hilditch and Lovern1 have directed attention to the gradual simplification in the fatty-acid composition of animal fats as one proceeds from the lower forms of life to those that are more highly organized. In particular, they have noted the striking difference between the complexity of the fats of aquatic animals, which contain, in addition to C14, C16 and C18 saturated acids, a wide range of unsaturated acids of the C14, C16, C18, C20 and C22 series, as compared with the fats of the more highly evolved land mammals, which generally contain as major components only three acids, palmitic, stearic and oleic.

Soil Microbiology as a Field Of Science

It can now be definitely recognized that the soil microbiologist is in a position to make important contributions not only to our knowledge of soil processes and plant growth, but also to microbiology, especially microbial physiology, and to the utilization of microorganisms for various industrial, public health and other processes. The soil microbiologist is able to contribute in many ways to man's capacity to survive, by learning to control the activities of injurious microorganisms and by favoring the processes brought about by the beneficial organisms. The reason why the broader concept "microbiology" rather than the narrower term "bacteriology" has been used throughout this discussion is that the soil microbiologist has often to pay as much attention to the fungi as to the bacteria, and occasionally also to the protozoa, the algae and even the nematodes and other worms, inhabiting the soil in large numbers. Only a recognition of all these lower forms of life and their many interrelationships can help to elucidate this complex and important science.

Studies upon Strongylus vulgaris. V. In vitro Toxicity of Copper Sulphate and the Cupric Halides

Although copper salts are such effective poisons for the lower forms of life, little work has been done with any of the copper compounds as anthelmintics, except for the extensive investigations of copper sulphate in trichostrongylid infections in sheep and some recent reports on the efficacy of certain proprietary copper anthelmintics. Because of this the action in vitro of a number of common cupric salts was tested against Strongylus vulgaris. The present paper reports the toxicity of cupric sulphate, chloride, fluoride and bromide for this parasite.

Transfer of Training and Reconstruction of Experience

Transfer of training, like democracy, intelligence, learning, curriculum, and the like, has been defined in a variety of ways. Without taking much space to review these definitions it is safe to say that all of them agree on one general pattern. Thus we may define transfer of training a that proces of using or applying previously acquired information, habit, skill, attitude, or ideal in dealing with a relatively new or novel situation. So defined transfer of training is a fact which both experience and experiment have amply demonstrated, Thorndike to the contrary notwithstanding. That it is also an ideal we have no reason to doubt so long as we have faith in education and so long further as we subscribe to the view that experience, properly acquired and used, is the best teacher. That it is intimately tied up with our concept of democracy cannot be ignored once we agree that democracy, from one view point, is a faith in the average man's ability to use and modify his experience in order to direct the course of his subsequent behavior. Thus, denial of transfer of training means denial of the verdict of experience, of the efficacy of education, and of the soundness and validity of democracy as a guiding ideal. Furthermore, to deny transfer is equivalent to denying to man that quality called intelligence, which separates him from the non-living and the lower forms of life. In final analysis, education, learning, democracy, and the like terms, all haYe their root on the assumption that transfer of training is a fact.

IS RELIGION SUFFICIENT?

Is religion as we interpret, teach and practice it today capable of motivating life? Can religion qualify or control conduct and so shape character? In common with lower forms of life, we respond to the drive of hunger, to the desire for a mate, to the compulsion of fear and anger, to the urge to live and to defend our lives. These motivations are all very simple and direct. They spring from nature's demand that the race shall not end, but shall go on. But is there another source of motivation‐‐call it a higher source if you wil‐‐which is able to condition these more primitive and subjective drives and cause men to act with reference to values outside themselves? Is there a source of constraint capable of making men serve ideal ends? And is religion this source, has it this power over men?

The Maturation Divisions in Relation to the Segregation of Homologous Chromosomes

HE discovery of new facts T and their correlations with each other and with those previously known may satisfy the individual research worker, but the practical applications of the facts hold the chief interest for those in other fields of endeavor. Thus, cytology principally interests the public on account of its relation to pathology, to physiology, and to evolution and heredity. Its relationship to the last of these is the especial concern of the present paper. Living things, plant or animal, are either single cells as in the lower forms of life or cobrdinated groups of many cells as in all higher organisms. In other words, the unit of living matter is the cell. This is a microscopical bit of protoplasm which contains a highly specialized, centrally-located part called the nucleus. The essential constituent of the n4cleus is a substance which stains deeply with basic dyes, hence Flemming ('79) named it chromatin from the Greek word xpct/Aa meaning color. Concordant evidence from many lines of work has been sufficient to convince most biologists that chromatin, which is the only material contributed in equal amount by both parents in fertilization, is the physical basis of heredity. The chromatin is in a loose, spongy condition during the ordinary processes of metabolism, but condenses when a cell prepares to divide. It then becomes evident that there is a definite number of dense bodies which were named chromosomes by Waldeyer in i888. During division each chromosome splits lengthwise and a half of every one goes to either new cell. Each species has a definite chromosomal complex, the characteristics of which are most readily distinguished just before the halves of the chromosomes separate during cell division. For instance, the number of chromosomes is practically constant, although certain exceptions exist due to the sex-determining mechanism, supernumeraries and multiple formation. Also a graded size series is usually present. This series is actually double as there are almost invariably two of a given size and shape. Of these two morphologically alike, paired or homologous chromosomes, one has been derived from the male and the other from the female parent. The germ cells in preparation for fertilization undergo a series of changes called collectively gametogenesis. The part of this process with which we are particularly concerned is called maturation and consists of two cell divisions of a somewhat special type. These are known as the first and second maturation divisions. The behavior of the pairs of chromosomes during these two divisions is the especial field of this paper. Before the maturation divisions, homol-

Poetry, Prose, and Rhythm

The following study represents an attempt to determine the fundamental difference between poetry and prose and the relation of simple rhythm, or metre, to poetry. The reader should bear in mind that in all branches of science and art distinctions and classifications hold good, as a rule, only in a broad and general way; there are always border-line phenomena that defy classification. For example, we make a general distinction between animal and plant life, and yet of some of the lower forms of life it is difficult to say whether they belong in the one class or in the other. Or again, it is no uncommon thing to hear chemists and physicists dispute regarding the provinces of their respective sciences. And again, rhythm and melody seem to us to be very different things, and yet at bottom they are both rhythm, because differences in pitch depend upon differences in frequency of vibration, and in any melody these vibration frequencies stand in a rhythmical relation to each other. The farther we penetrate into any subject, the more difficult does exact classification become. And so our distinction between poetry and prose must be taken in a rather broad and general way. There are pieces of prose which seem to be highly poetic in nature, and there are poems in which the writer seems to have encroached upon the province of prose. Be this as it may, I believe we can at least say that in this direction lies the field of poetry, in that the field of prose. With this general reservation, then, let us ask the question: What is the essential difference between poetry and prose?

Nature and Scope of Present Political Theory

One of the fundamental differences that distinguish human beings from the lower forms of life is their respective relations to their environments. All living creatures except man are at the mercy of their surroundings. They live under conditions which are not of their making and which are but little changed by their efforts. No conscious purpose nor definite idea of progress is possible among them. They live in a world of nature and are constantly limited by its conditions, being unable to control it or to change their own destiny by their own deliberate actions.

THE BENEFICENT MICROBE.

In his presidential address before the British Medical Association,Dr. Russell Reynoldscalls attention to the "gradually increasing appreciation of the fact" that the lower forms of life that we include under the general head of microbes, and to which it is the popular fashion nowadays to refer all manner of disease, are not altogether mischievous in the influences they exert on the human economy, but are, on the contrary, often beneficial. Though this is no new medical view, its statement under such circumstances by so high an authority at this time has a certain significance. It is a recognition of a truth that is becoming more and more evident, that we only know as yet a small part of the beneficent functions of these bodies, and that even the maleficent ones may have their uses to mankind.Dr. Reynoldsgoes at some length into the subject of immunization as