Medicine: Dated Chimpanzees

Ten years ago Professor Robert Mearns Yerkes Yale psychobiologist, set two male and two female chimpanzees up in housekeeping behind a high brick Yale fence. Assiduously Professor Yerkes watched the two couples grow up, learn the facts of life, breed, raise families. When Yale received money for an Institute of Human Relations building, the Yale chimpanzees got a penthouse because bossing and watching them was the nearest Professor Yerkes could get to what U. S. culture forbade him—bossing and watching a caged collection of men, women & children.

Gift of $500,000 soon enabled Professor Yerkes to house a second colony of chimpanzees on a 200-acre farm at Orange Park Fla. There Mona, 21, gave birth to the only known pair of anthropoid twins a male and a female (TIME, June ii 1934). There Gua, 7½-months, proved herself smarter in many respects than Donald Kellogg, 10 months (TIME. June 19 1933 et ante). There chimpanzees have proved that, although they cannot talk they can think and make rational decisions, that their intelligence and behavior are akin to human intelligence and behavior.

Last week Professor Yerkes announced in Science that the State of Florida has granted a charter of incorporation to the "Anthropoid Experiment Station of Yale University" at Orange Park. Last week was also a good time, decided Professor Yerkes. a reclusive observer, to brag about his 16 "dated chimpanzees." He calls them that because their "ancestry, date of birth and, with few exceptions, developmental history, experience, use in experiments, are matters of reliable record."

Professor Yerkes has 25 more chimpanzees as his wards. He plans "to replace as rapidly as practicable all members of the breeding colony whose age and history are unknown, by dated individuals."