Science: Cosmic Nemesis?

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Dr. Francis Farnham Heyroth, 36, of Cincinnati, is a doctor of medicine turned chemist. He assists Professor George Sperti Jr., 31, an electrical engineer turned biochemist. They work in the Basic Science Research Laboratory of the University of Cincinnati which graduated them both. Recently Professor Sperti, with Dr. Heyroth's aid, perfected a method of irradiating foods without spoiling their taste. General Foods Corp. snatched up the rights to the Sperti process to commercialize it.

The other day came Dr. Heyroth's turn at a prominence which became noteworthy last week. He addressed a meeting in the Auditorium of Union Gas & Electric Co., Cincinnati public utility.

To prepare his audience for the ominous thing he had to say, Dr. Heyroth briefly described the electromagnetic spectrum and the nature of the various radiations, from the long, red end of the visible spectrum out to Hertzian or radio waves; and from the short, violet end of the visible spectrum out to the cosmic (Millikan) ray.

Cosmic rays are shortest and most penetrating. They are the quivers of the gestating universe and the twitchings of dying matter. It is supposed that when vagabond rhythms of space collide and entangle, a pristine atom is born and a cosmic ray darts away from the medley, that when aged protons and electrons bash each other to death, the offshoot of their antagonism is a cosmic ray.

Little is known of cosmic rays. But of other rays a progressive series of effects on living matter may be observed. Heat, for example—and Dr. Heyroth pursued his thesis* with mounting excitement— sears the flesh immediately. X-rays cause a burn which becomes evident three weeks to six months after. Gamma-ray burns do not show for years. "So the cosmic rays, we believe, must take infinitely longer still. Of what investigation we have made of these rays, we venture what seems to be a wholly new theory as to why— exempting not even the strongest and most sheltered—all men are mortal."

The cosmic threat: "Preserved from every illness otherwise, every accident, and assuming all organs none the worse for the wear of years, it is the cosmic rays in our light that will bring us to our death. . . .

"All aside from the result of natural wear down of the body, the effect of these inescapable rays—unless one cared to live in some dungeon dark; and even into it they may eventually pierce their ways, though unseen—will eventually track us down! They are probably Nature's last provision for making sure that all living things will end their life-cycles in the proper time. . . . Man is, indeed, born to die!"

But there is hope in Cincinnati: "Whether science shall yet produce for us an insulation against the rays suggested . . . is for the future to show!"