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Leduc's-''' ^" profession to have created life was controverted by 

 Bonnier,'" Charrin and Goupil,''^ and by Kunstler,^'"" in 1907. 



The most extravagant claims made in this direction are those 

 of Burke, ""''^ whose observations on the spontaneous action of ra- 

 dioactive bodies on gelatine media form the basis of a voluminous 

 work entitled "The Origin of Life." While these experiments 

 have little of the scientific importance they have been held to 

 possess in the popular mind, it is desirable to state, in Burke's 

 own words, what he did, and his own interpretation of the results. 

 "An extract of meat of i lb. of beef to i liter of water, to- 

 gether with I per cent, of Witter peptone, i per cent, of sodium 

 chloride, and 10 per cent, of gold labelled gelatine was slowly 

 heated in the usual way, sterilized, and then cooled. The gela- 

 tine culture medium thus prepared, and commonly known as 

 bouillon, is acted upon by radium salts and some other slightly 

 radioactive bodies in a most remarkable manner." ^^ 



When the mixture above described was placed in a test-tube 

 and sterilized, and the surface sprinkled with 2.5 grains of radium 

 bromide (activity not given), after 24 hours (three to four days 

 when radium chloride was used), "a peculiar culture-like growth 

 appeared on the surface, and gradually made its way downwards, 

 until after a fortnight, in some cases, it had grown nearly a cen- 

 timeter beneath the surface." From this growth Burke was not 

 able to make sub-cultures. He considers them not bacteria, and 

 not contaminations, but " highly organized bodies." They have 

 "nuclei", subdivide when a certain size is reached, and "the 

 larger ones appear to have sprung from the smaller ones, and 

 they have all probably arisen in some way from the invisible 

 particles of radium." He regards them as colloidal, rather than 

 crystalline, " of the nature of ' dynamical aggregates ' rather than 

 of ' static aggregates '," and coins for them a new name, radiobes. 

 This forms the experimental basis for a volume of 351 pages. 



With reference to these discoveries, Dubois ^^ claims priority 

 over Burke, and rejects his term radiobe in favor of eobe, be- 

 cause these bodies may be obtained with non-radioactive sub- 

 stances. 



A few months after Burke's announcement Rudsre"*' "^ showed 



