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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 1908)
PORTLAND,, OREGON, SUNDAY HORNING, NOVEMBER -15, M 903 V 1 lev A 5 (5- HUDSON MAXIM'S PLANS TO PROLONG HUMAN LIFE POOL OF, BETHESDA for man j kind. " A wellspririg. of, health, r Jom row disease, which shall miraculously cleanse of the Infirmities of the flesh not only the sick and ailing, but safeguard from the transmission of disease their, chil dren and 'their children's children. That is the wonderful hope held out to the human race by Hudson Maxim, the famous inventor, V;" .V '.. A A In the jet immature science of electro chemistry 'he discerns, the possibility of "a marvelous agent for conveying, into the germ-invaded human -'. body, remedial agents that are the deadly foes of bacteria and protozoa. . ' Like Nobel, the great European in ventor of high explosives the passing, years have brought to this creator of the 'world's most rending, destructive energies the prevision of a supreme boon to man kind - one which; where the altruistic Swedish inventor of dynamite beheld a fu ture of universal peace and love, manifests -itself Jo the A merican discoverer of max imite in the guise of the goddess Hygeia. An electro-chemical bath that shall be v,, a veritable Pool of Bethesda . " 'A . .. Is it merely the dream of -that-para dox incarnate, the creator of the agents of destruction, who ever longs, in his inmo'sf soul, Jo upbuild anew in some more admU ,-' rable perfection f. It. '4 -' i 1 K. r . L-'h. v t I Oft "I" '11 ...i. ft r iTI 1 JSK ,.1 5 A V' . II .I i ill - x 11. , MJX1 - l' V1 , X v If' 4 Or is it the first, glimpse of some sublime reality, such as is vouchsafed, in these modern years of progress, to those, inspired seers of our era, those Promethean scientists who, greatly dfrtng, wrest from nature secrets which, to the seers of an ' earlier day, appeared divinet H ' UDSON MAXTlVr,, boldest among ex perimenters whose . - vanished -; ! left hand for years has remained eloquent proof of his devotion to his faiths. whose great wealth, coined from his ' fertile brain, remains as convincing evidence of the soundness of his judgment is as cautious as. he is bold in his prophecy. - ' - - The huge, main fact that science will fur nish its .Bethesda Pool appears to him distinct ly possible .but when, and precisely how, it is to come, he avers cannot now be forecasted . This,; let it be carefully, noted, has been the attitude of modern science upon' v all , epochal ' discoveries and inventions, from antisepsis to aerial i navigation, v Tet all of them some quickly, soma slowly,' and many, like the anti toxins, as suddenly as full-fledged Minerva from the brow of Jove hiv descended in their cony plete beneiicence upon the unexpecting, as tounded world. ; '- The dictum of Hudson Maxim upon th possibilities of electro-chemistry is not the far fetched fancy of an authority upon one branch' of science rushing in upon a domain - with . which previotls experience has left , him un . familiar. ' , m Gn the contrary, it is the sober, slow, log ical outcome of a broadly trained and deeply Versed intellect studying the possibilities of a ; science which has long, been its familiar tool and ally. ' The catholic learning and the originating genius of the creative chemist were essential attributes of the mind that could-achieve such triumphs with high explosives as make his name known to all the governments of the world. The profound 'knowledge and; the daring skill f a scientist, ' beside , whose achievements the ability of - an prdinary "electrical expert" - are .child's play, were requisite for his devising of ; electric furnaces and his rdiaoovery of the cal- ieium carbide now in common use. . Y?." .; ; Chemistry and electricity both have been his obedient genii for years; ye. they are 'only. ; successors, to the favorite study of his early manhood, followed in its developments .with all ' the affectionate interest ; a man bestows upon .1 retentiveness, has left him, in the midst of his hereditary disease in parents would be the .innumerable other activities, more, broadly greatest kind of a godsend to their children, learned in -he modern aspects of scientific 'There remains among the inventions and medicine than many physicians in active discoveries which are possibilities of Jhe future ; practice. . . the devising of a method for, the destruction of ' t This, then, is the electric scientist who disease germB in the human tissues lymph and holds up to the race of man the golden promise blood by an electro-chemical , process, which of health for the future of such health as hu- , may: or may not be one ; of electro-osmosis or manity has never known, with its hope soaring cataphoresis. ' ... , . ' - r : ;oV "."i-r- ' ' -beyond the cure of generations in the present. "It would be the greatest discovery possible to transmission of their blood, pure and unal- for man to make; he who - should ; solve . the ' loyed by the latent germs of disease, to posterity, problem would be- at once the greatest inventor And these are the words of his forecast in and the greatest "benefactor of the human race, ' "i rnriT'TT- MB. lis.' V- . JAi ' i J Jt r IT the vocation which cif cumstanaes and some am bitions more readily attainable lead him to abandon. . . v Tor had not Hudson Maxim' become the most important aid of the American govern ment in equipping its guns and projectiles with smokeless- powder ana tremendous maxmite, the world would have had a physician, his. whole career devoted to thecuro of the ills that flesh is heir to. u weir oviuueM jwu w vmt weu-weisnea . ; - "x. nave not - solved it; but that it can be cautien: .' ' . ' . solved appears to lie witLit,rthQ.power of man's T am not among the number who believe invention. TFronv investigations 1 have already in. the indefinite prolongation of human life, made, I believe that such athin? is not only for death .is only one of the aspects of life, possible, but very probable, and that before Life is a series of fermentations as Herbert many years there will exist 'in . very truth ,a" Spencer stated it, 'a continual, adjustment be- Pool of Bethesda in the form of an electro tween internal and external forces.' 'Death is 'chemical cabinet, within which the victim of merely ..the necessary conclusion; of .'thai ad- .any of the dreaded germ diseases may be justment. . . : ; cleansed of his affliction. - "Neither is it desirable that individual. - -:. "TJiis augury of htpe for the future is so human life should be indefinitely prolonged, for enormous in xts.-scope, so huge in its promise As- a voiinir man he studied ardent.lv the the species is better seieu: bthe.dejtr princips principled of medicine ,H; the -expectation of ';of old human dereUc " making, its practice.,. Co. on with; ; schools, for . active mind But every sten mem uas oeen a BUDjevi o luicuoa mtcrcah aavj i processes iitiw Mtiu.vv -- , , . concern-to him.-' ''- -v- : : . greatly prolonged. Xjet Una is not so impot .-J "t """ -'"'t t ' J, , JEs iemarkable inemory. famous among, his .tant Z L Su .which would Accrue to com- v : " T-A 1 ssodates for its scope u weU as its amazing . ing:Seaerations.':The eluaination;of germs of , ..(twraa on r. IV:
