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The Seaforth News, 1961-08-17, Page 2Science Detect, # Phony Wifl William Cooper Hobbs was a scoundrel. Throughout his life he w'as undated top in every sort aF fraud and °rookery, He was one of these extraordinary men with . s.n acute brain, but quite incapa,. ble of going straight. The excitement of crime suit- ed his personality, but justice Ought up with him eventually. Throughout his life, William Cooper Robbs was eantempbuous o,f the law. But it was the law, faded by the latest scientific weapons, that finally sent Mn to jail for a long term. In his early clays Hobbs had started as a clerk to a money- lender, Before long the roles x ere reversed and Hobbs was the boss. Shortly after the First World War he was running round the West End of London, allegedly employed as a solici- tor's managing clerk. Once again he was, in tact, the boss, although legal examina- tions and Hobbs were complete strangers, His first piece of notoriety was in the early twenties when he was one of the conspirators who obtained thousands of pounds frown an Indian maharajah as the result of blackmail, It started in a civil action which was fa- mous as the "Mr. A. Case," Hobbs waw sent to prison by Mr, Justice Avory for conspiracy to defraud. Sterne of his confed- erates gave evidence against him end the famous judge didn't mine° words. In the early 1930's Fraudulent fire -raising was a favourite pas- time. It was always happening in London, Manchester, Newcastle and many other large towns. Business premises were being burned down and claims for compensation made. Eventually, as the result of tremendous efforts by a leading London solicitor, a great many people were sent 50, prison. But in 1931 the situation was becom- ing extremely serious. Anyone who remembers the London theatre at that time will have seen the name of Clarkson in the programs. "Wigs by Clarkson" was a common foot- note. Willy Clarkson was the best known • wigmaker in the ;world. What most people did not realize was that Willy Clarkson ,was a fraud. In 1931 he had re - rived £26,000 compensation for es. fire in his Wardour Street *Lop. Two years later he received ,£39,000 for a fire in other pre- ditises, The insurance companies end the police were hot on his ;trail in 1934, when he died. , Mr. Hobbs was friendly with tr. Clarkson. He dealt with his °gal affairs and was, no doubt, volved deeply in Clarkson's aIndies. What upset Habbs was t on Clarkson's death a will ;was produced which had been xrnade on a printed will form slated 1927. In it, Hobbs was ,named as sale executor, but ,$ larkson, having made one or o legacies, omitted to deal with the residue. As Clarkson was illegitimate the residue mad go to the Crown and this, r. Hobbs then/gilt, would be a ;very serious waste of good money. Hobbs was now in league with Pc man named Edmund O'Connor, gwell-known solicitor, who was oing downhill fast, They produced a new will dat- 1929, 't'hich, they said, had een found in O'Connor's safe nd vfsiolt, wonderful to relate, pointed Hobbs sole executor ;end residuary legatee. When the authorities examin- I d this will they found there ere a number of minor lega- es left to some of Clarkson's Aid employees, but oddly enough there were some very strange ;4.uistakes in the names of these people, which would certainly ;pot have been made by an em- kloyer who had known them for Years. Science then came to the as - To Touch the Evening Star On Feb, 12, Russia launched a 1,400 -pound "automatic inter- plenetar station" toward Venus from an orbiting sputnik. It is expected to pass dose to that planet near the end of April or early in May when Venus is closest to earth. It will continue on in orbit around the sun. Drawing shows tint Venus rocket's route, as'1 THE PHASES OF VENUS; O• FARTHSt Pl$TANCE FROM EARN** IGOMILLION MILES CLC 3SST AP?ROACH TO EARTH - 2l MILLION MILES tta: utse it orbits between the sun and earth, Venus shows phases as the moon does. Familiar as the evening or morning star, it has q diameter of 7,700 miles and because of this has been called Earth's twin. A 170 -pound earthling would weigh about 145. pounds int Venus. Advanced life apparently does not exist on it. IS VENDS A PRIMITIVE JUNGLE OR A DARK, BARREN DESERT? Little is known about Venus because of the dense clouds that hide its surface. Even the length of its day is uncertain. An old theory holds that Venus is a wet, jungle planet resembling earth millions of years ago. Water vapor was recently discovered in its atmosphere, The jungle idea may not be entirely impossible, Modern theories spy Venus is probably a wind-swept dust bowl. An abundance of carbon dioxidein the atmosphere, plus the planet's nearness to the sun mean that its temperature must be extremely high. Its clouds may be 4ust or volcanic ash. Perhaps the Russian probe will shed new light on the enigma of Venus: sistance of the police. The alleg- ed will was put under the ultra- violet lamp. It was then seen that one name had been erased fxran the original document. The reason for that was fairly obvi- ous to the police, writes David Ensor in "Tit -Bits." It was the name of a man who had been employed by Clark- son at the time of his death, but was completely unknown to him at the date of the will. Ob- viously somebody had realized a stupid mistake had been made. O'Connor was one, of the wit- nesses of the will; the other, a man called Mitchell, was dead. Fortunately, the police were able to compare the signature of Mr. Mitchell with a known and proved signature, and under the ,ray lamp the dilferences were distinct. Hoping to make things quits certain, Hobbs and O'Connor then produced a letter which, they said, had been written to Hobbs by Clarkson before his death. In this letter Clarkson re- ferred to the making of the al- leged will and that he was leav- ing the residue to Hobbs, The signature of the letter was genu- ine, but its tone aroused sus- picion, so it was also put under ;he lamp. What the lamp showed was quite remarkable. It proved be- yond doubt that the original let- ter had been a hand-written one from Clarkson to his bank. The original handwriting had beer bleached out and typewriting su- perimposed, the signature being left. The handwriting under the typing could be se en clearly, even to the figures which had been written in a bottom corner by a bank clerk. Science had convicted two thorough scoun- drels. Hobbs got five years. O'Connor got seven. They both died In miserable poverty. The only time most of us hear money talking is when it's doing a countdown before taking off. SNAKE STUFFERS -- It takes six men to cram a wriggling 19- foot python into o barrel at New York's Bronx Zoo, The oram session was for weighing the reptile, Which they did -- at 199 pounds 'after deducting the weight of the barrel, Can You Live To Be A Hundred? Just before King' George VI died, his doctors tried one last thing. They called in Dr. Paul Niehans ,from Switzerland. The Swiss surgeon arrived in London on January 25th. It was a cold, dull day, but .in Bucking- ham Palace there were rays ,of hope. on all faces, Niehans' own face ,revealed nothing. Re: evith- draw to a.conference room and studiedthe case history. The king had ;cancer of the lung. There was little Niehans could do. When he met the British specialists that night, he said' es much. "But you've helped Churchill!" Niehans nodded, He was also to help,Ibn Saud of Saudi -Arabia and the late Aga Khan. But, his treatment — injection of ani- mal' cells — would be useless to the ailing king, "I can regenerate' an old. body," Niehans said. "I can prevent it from ageing before its' time. I can revitalize glands, or reduce cholesterol.' But there are limits to what I can do." His ideas are simple enough, He says: "At twenty you want love; at forty, money and fame, At sixty you want the strength to live." An ageing man wants an ac- tive mind in a healthy body, a woman wants to retain youthful good looks. Niehans' medical ap- proach to these needs is to sell the patient cells. There' are about forty trillion cells in a human body. As a per- son ages, those cells deteriorate. Niehans injects into ageing bodies the fresh cells of young animals. In most cases he uses foetal or unborn goats or bulls. Many of the world's most dis- tinguished men attribute their long life and energy to the Swiss doctor. Sir Winston Churchill, eighty- six, is still active in public life. Dr. Niehans is credited with hav- ing preserved his amazing vital- ity. Dr. Adenauer, Chancellor of the German Federal Republic, is eighty-five. But so dynamic is he that young German diplomats find it hard to match his work capacity. They call him the man of perpetual motion. The late Pcpe Pius XII also re- ceived the Niehans treatment. Until a few days before his death al eighty-two, he worked at a tremendous pace. After he recovered his health hi 1954 the Pope made Niehans a member of the Pontificia) Ac- ademy of Sciences, where he fill- ed the Coat of the late Dr Alex- ander Fleming. the di:<cov:'4t•d of penicillin. Niehans' discovery, like Flern- ing's, developed by accident. In March, 1921, another Swiss Sur- geon telephoned !lichens one day at dawn, "Listen to me!" the surgeon cried into the 'phone, "An em- ergency!" • "We've had an accident at my clinic, Niehans. A young surgeon removed a woman's parathyroid glands, Now she has tetany cramps. It seems bad — a matter of life and death." Could Nie- hans help with animal glands? A transplantation? Niehans could. By three o'clock She woman had been rushed into his small clinic.' By three -fifteen Niehands had slaughtered'a calf, removed She parathyroids and rushed the four pea-sized glands into his .theatre. • The young woman, meanwhile, had• turned from bad to worse. She was on the point of death. • Niehans know he could not per- form the necessary surgery in time to save her life. A gland transplantation would•put a ris- ky strain on the patient's strength, In that moment, he made a de- cision that was to revolutionize medicine. He seized the dish. with the four parathyroids in front of him. With scissors, Niehans• shred- ded the glands, then mashed them into a thick pulp. Ile added a'Ringer saline solution and drew the mixture into a syringe. He set the hypodermic needle above the woman's chest and pressed the plunger, letting the cellular liquid seep into her body. Ten minutes later, her cramps nad lessened. At length, the shaking ceased. She was breath - mg. Her heart beat • solidly. She lived. The woman is still alive, writes Curtis Casewit in "Tit -Bits". In'that year — 1931 — an im- portant addition to cellular ther- apy techniques had been discov- ered. Niehans, an endocrine spe- cialist, realized after careful ex- periment on animals that ,he no longer had to transplant whole glands. He could inject glandular calls.' • For years, the Swisssurgeon was his own guinea pig for cell injections. In 1949, he almost died from one carelessly administered dosage. Here's how it happened: Niehans had hoped to simplify cell therapy techniques for the average medical doctor who had neither the means, She time nor the inclination to set up a com- plex slaughtering operation for fresh cells. Could one substitute frozen cells and achieve the same re- sults? Experimenting again, Niehans placed some cellular liquid ,in a refrigerator tray. After two days, he took the tray out, thawed the liquid and filled a hypodermis syringe with the treated liquid cele. f+ortnuga. He injeoted the two -clay -old fluid into his own artn. Ile became dizzy, nauseous, then lapsed into unconseiousness. A nurse discovered him of the lab, floor, and she rushed him to. his own clinic where an assistant quickly injected an antidote. The frozen cells had become toxic, a fact that wrote an end to this facet of the frozen -cell experiments. Niehans now knew that cells had to be quick-frozen at Ant- arctic temperatures if preserva- tion was to be complete. Having accomplished this situ- plifioabion of the technique, he Went a step farther. He began to study the possibility of manu- facturing a dry cell powder. The Rhein Chemical Company in Heidelberg — one of Ger- many's large drug firms — roves- tigeted and then bought Niehans' idea. They coined a drug name, Siccacell, and after thousands of tests and government inspections, they put the drug on the German market, Are dry culls just as good as fresh ones? Yes. The Rhein Chemical Company made ex- haustive tests, and after diluting the powder in a special sail so- lution, Rhein Chemical scientists could see the cells quivering, splitting and 'reproducing. Siccacell gave the general prac- titioner a cell bank, similar to a blood bank. He had, only to open an ampule, mix the powder with a specified solution, and inject his patients. During the early 1950s, Nie- hans often visited the sprightly Adenauer in Bonn. Adenauer de- clined to comment on those vis- its. Sir Winston Churchill, on the ether hand, has never made any bones about his faith in Niehans. In the spring of 1954, the Swiss surgeon was introduced to Pope Pius XII, The Pontiff was not well. He. -could not sleep. He could not eat. Niehans modestly offered but did not push his ser- vices. • When they finally summoned hisn from Switzerland, the Pope's health had taken a grave turn. He was in bed, racked by gastric pains, emaciated. Within a month after Niehans' treatment began the Pontiff's hic- cups had ceased. He was eating and sleeping again. But that November, another , 'complicationset in. The Pope - lifted a heavy box and crum- pled to the floor with a hernia off the diaphraezn. Niehans advis_ ed against surgery. He proposed rest and a good diet, and then • some cellular therapy. The cure succeeded. The grateful Pontiff gave Nie- hans his blessings and also, prais- ed cellular therapy to a gathering of Rome's surgeons. ' Niehans' operation is a small one. He does not believe in mass production for fresh -cell therapy. His spotless clinic in Burier, near Vevey, consists of himself, an as- sistant, a nurse and an attendant. There are only twenty-five bode, yet it is rare that Niehaus has more than two or three pa- tients at one time, • AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND PLANE FACTS qRcn ' T ANC AR igo RECENTLY CONSTRUCTED AT RCAF. STATION TRENTON, ONT. TO HOUSE IA 'TRANS?QRT AIRCRAFT— COVERS a dl5l Ri E. i 'e tKRtlIN''•i�--.i� �, ry >, n. a ,flava waw rx,1 mczknst = WM aoa L 31 EACH OFTHE. 9 ON DooRs Or - THIS NEW BUILDING IS -POWERED BY A l I•p MOTOR AT THE SAME Po\rrv.R-WEIGHT RATIO A MODERN AUTOMOBILE COULD PULL ATP'IN 07.511X LOiAD , Te' IN °NE MINUTE - NE HMGAR's FIRE PROTECTION SYSTEM DISCHARGES 'S, OV) GALLONSOF ;rl: I; i &Ai/ia'/'ER/