HUMAN ALCHEMY

When we hear that a young Brazilian scientist has landed in New York who claims that by a process of blood irrigation he can revive the dead, change a negro into a white man, reduce one's necessary modicum of sleep from eight hours to one, and indefinitely prolong life, we do not know whether to be amused or amazed.

Dr. Pedroso has been experimenting extensively on rats, and is sure that the results would be the same on human beings. He takes blood from one limb, passes it through an apparatus he has invented where it is treated with heat, electricity, or serum as the case may be, and then back into another limb. His object is then reached and the transmutation is a fait accompli.

Science certainly does change life! Heretofore one was reasonably certain that "when the brains were out the man would die", but now even this assurance is taken from us. Our enemies may live forever, and the one we kill today will have a chance to kill us tomorrow. To be sure, it would be but a momentary triumph, however, for the second dead man could be promptly revived. Formerly when two men fought and one was more or less damaged the other was fined a few dollars--if one died the other might have been hanged. But now killing a man will be no more dangerous than giving him a bloody nose,--will it be murder? Mondel, who spent his life working out laws of heredity, should turn in his grave, for all his labor must be done over again to fit a transmuted race. All told, our already complicated existence will become a hopeless nightmare of bewilderment, and we must resign ourselves to it. Surely the philosopher's stone must feel its hiding place no longer safe!