A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



" To the solid ground 

 Of Nature trusts the mind which builds for aye." — Wordsworth. 



THURSDAY, MAY 3, 1906. 



RADIOBES AND BIOGEN. 

 The Origin of Life: Its Physical Basis and Definition. 

 By John Butler Burke. Pp. xiv + 350; with illus- 

 trations. (London : Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1906.) 

 Price 165. net. 



MR. J. B. BURKE describes, under the name of 

 "radiobes," minute bodies which appeared in 

 sterilised bouillon when small quantities of radium 

 chloride or bromide were brought into contact there- 

 with. 



" .A minute quantity of the salt contained in a small 

 glass tube, one end of which was drawn out to a fine 

 point, was introduced into an ordinary test-tube con- 

 taining bouillon. The test-tube was plugged with 

 cotton-wool in the usual way with such experiments, 

 and then sterilised at a temperature of 130° C. for 

 about thirty minutes at a time. On cooling, as soon 

 as the liquid had coagulated, the fine end of the inner 

 tube containing the radium was broken by means of 

 a wire hook in a side tube. The salt was thus allowed 

 to drop on the surface of the gelatin. After twentv- 

 four hours signs of growth were already visible." 



The radiobes had appeared ! They were at first like 

 diplococci, and varied considerably in size from mere 

 specks as seen with a j!.,-inch lens. There is a lack 

 of precise measurements. 



" The growth is from (he minutest visible specks, 

 which develop into two dots, then into a dumb-bell 

 shaped appearance, later a biscuit-shape, and later 

 still more like frog-'s spawn, through various stages, 

 as in the figures, until a shape is reached different 

 from its previous forms, when it divides and loses its 

 Individuality, and ultimately becomes resolved into 

 minute crystals." 



-Some of them show a nucleated structure, which mav 

 exhibit subdivision "as in karvokinesis " ; they are 

 stainable; they are credited with "assimilation"; 

 there is a " stoppage of growth at a certain stage of 

 development"; there is a peculiar segmentation, like 

 that in yeast-cells, said to be quite different from any 

 NO. 1905, VOL. 74] 



cleavage due to surface tension; and, finallv, there is 

 a disintegration. The author speaks of them as 

 intermediate between crystals and bacteria, and as 

 possessing n— i of the n properties of living bacilli. 



The author is somewhat vacillating in his descrip- 

 tion of his " radiobes," but he does not regard them 

 as living things in the ordinary sense. They 

 "obviously lie altogether outside the beaten track of 

 living things " (p. log), but they may bridge over 

 the apparently insuperable gap between the organic 

 and inorganic world (p. 110). 



" Forms we have obtained are analogous to living 

 types and may be called artificial forms of life, but 

 they are not the same as life as we know it to-day : 

 they may help, however, to fill in some of the gaps 

 between living and dead matter " (p. 187). 



" These bodies are neither crystalline nor colloid in 

 disguise, though colloids, as aggregates, but some- 

 thing more : and crystals in their constituent parts. 

 The point which distinguishes them from both of 

 these is perhaps the fundamental principle which 

 marks them out at once as possessing the elements 

 of vitalitv in a primitive and most undeveloped state " 



(p. II2).- 



The author started with proteid material, which 

 we know to be an essential constituent of organisms, 

 which has not as yet been artificially synthesised, and 

 he brought into contact with this a stimulus provo- 

 cative of molecular change, namely, a radium salt; 

 he thus obtained radiobes, and the interesting point 

 is whether these do in any way approximate in their 

 behaviour to simple organisms. As we have not 

 studied radiobes we can only judge from the evidence 

 the author adduces, and it seems to us entirely incon- 

 clusive. We find no convincing evidence of assimila- 

 tion, cyclic development, or reproduction in the 

 ordinary sense of these terms; and we do not think 

 the author succeeds in showing that radiobes are 

 essentially different from the minute aggregates or 

 mimic cells produced by many other experimenters. 

 We cannot bring ourselves to believe that little bodies 

 which are soluble in water will throw light on the 

 nature or origin of living organisms. The evidence 

 of anything approaching the behaviour of an organism 



