he French
were at first inclined to challenge the value of his work. We therefore
present here a "popular" scientific account of what he had achieved,
reprinted by permission from the _Scientific American_. Then comes the
grudging approval of Professor Legendre, the noted "Preparator of
Zoology," head of that section in the National Museum of Paris.

Briefly stated, the impressive step which science has here taken, is
the preservation of life in the heart and other organs so that these
may be taken out of the body and yet kept alive for months. With
smaller animals Carrel has even accomplished the actual transferrence
of organs from one individual to another. As for the simpler bodily
tissues, it now seems possible to preserve these indefinitely outside
the body, not only alive but in excellent health and ready to reassume
their functions in another body.

GENEVIEVE GRANDCOURT

THE "IMMORTALITY" OF TISSUES

A very evident disadvantage under which medical science has labored has
been the impossibility of watching the chemical process set in motion
by substances introduced into the body. For this reason various
experimenters, from time to time, have attempted to "grow tissues"
artificially, in such manner that their development, functions, and
decay--under both healthy and diseased conditions--might be studied
under the microscope. The only way in which this could be done would be
to take a piece of living tissue from the body, and cause its cells to
multiply; tissue being made up of an aggregation of cells.

Science has failed to produce a single living cell, that is, a cell
which will undergo the process of nuclear division (growth) which is
the prime condition of its being; and it seemed equally impossible to
cause a cell already living to undergo the same process if deprived of
the circulation of the blood. Therefore, when in 1910 it was announced
that Dr. Alexis Carrel with his assistant, Dr. M. T. Burrows, had
succeeded, scientific credulity was taxed. A well-known French savant
expressed the opinion before the Society of Biology in Paris, that as
others experimenting along these lines, had witnessed only degeneration
and survival of cells, this phenomenon was all Carrel's discovery
amounted to. In view of past experience, indeed, the chances were in
favor of a mistake. In 1897, Leo Loeb said that he had produced this
artificial growth both within and without the body. Obviously, such
development within th