I
recently had reason to re-read the 1941 story "Methuselah's Children" by Robert Heinlein. In that story, Heinlein stated the fictional science idea that "
the radioactive qualities of vitamins" have something to do with controlling the human lifespan.This is such a strange statement that I wondered how Heinlein had come to include it in his story.
Isaac Asimov had described the Adam Link stories about robots as having influenced the creation of his own positronic robot stories. Several years ago, I read a few of the Adam Link stories in an attempt to understand how they had contributed to Asimov's robot stories. As was the case for Campbell's robots in "The Last Evolution", the robot named Adam Link was very devoted to the man who designed and built him and, indeed, seemingly "born" with a deep desire to serve humans.
Adam Link had a special
iridium brain, but Asimov told his readers that a
positronic brain was made from platinum and iridium. Asimov also took an extra step towards explaining how a robot might be programmed so as to be loyal to humans (see the
Laws of Robotics).
Otto Binder wrote many other stories besides the ones about robots. Another series of stories was about Anton York. In the first Anton York story, "The Conquest of Life", published in 1937, readers are told how Anton's father (Mathew York) had performed an experiment on Anton, injecting him with a mysterious elixir.
Upon reaching the age of 55 while still having the youthful appearance of a man only 35 years old, Anton digs into the papers of his dead father and discovers mention of experiments involving "radiogens".
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from "The Conquest of Life"
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When I search the internet for "radiogens", I am led to webpages (
example) about
George Washington Crile. Crile was a surgeon, and one of his publications (from 1922) concerned the
thyroid gland. Much of what was in that published report on the thyroid gland is what you might expect from a surgeon in 1922. However, there was also the following (
Image A, below):
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Image A. From the 1922 publication about the thyroid gland by Crile.
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It is now known that
thyroid hormone has receptors in most cells of the human body and it is important for the normal growth and function of the nervous system. Iodine is an atomic constituent of thyroid hormone but does not control "conductivity" of tissues.
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timeline for iodine and thyroid (click image to enlarge)
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Apparently, thyroid hormone was first isolated in
1915, but until the
1940s there was still debate about chemical structure of circulating thyroid hormone in the blood. In 1922, Crile seemingly had no concept of thyroid hormone and how it influences the body, so there is a huge amount of nonsense in Crile's book about the thyroid gland (see
Image A, above).
In 1936, Crile published "The Phenomena of Life". This book was reviewed by the New York Times and it is not surprising if Otto Binder was influenced by Crile's weird views of human physiology. In his 1936 book, Crile presented his theory of "radiogens".
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York at work in the laboratory
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Crile's ideas about ionizing radiation inside cells as a source of energy for creating the electrical signals used to control the body were either ignored by other medical doctors or openly mocked as being crazy. Physiology research has revealed how cell metabolism creates cellular electric signals (
action potentials) that rapidly propagate through the body.
Returning to the fictional tale of Anton York, we learn that the York elixir: "protects protoplasm from disease by increasing the energy of radiogens in the body". In his father's notebooks, Anton finds the "chemical formulae" that reveal the secret of longevity (Image B, below):
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Image B: the secret of long life
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Fictional Chemistry. This "formula" is nonsense. Otto Binder lifted Grignard Reaction out of a chemistry book and zymase and pituitrin out of a biology book and combine them to create the imaginary Elixir M-7.
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magic molecule of immortality
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I've previously blogged about
fictional chemistry and
magic potions in science fiction. There is no objection to the creation of imaginary chemicals, but when devising fictional plot elements in the domain of living organisms, authors should take some care to avoid including outlandish imagined fictional biology. Earlier this year, I blogged about the popularity in science fiction stories that involve "
accelerating" biological processes with a magic potion. Where is the boundary between 1) the laughably absurd departure from plausibility and 2) the clever Sci Fi plot element that can be "swallowed" by science fiction fans? In the case of Binder and his linked zymase and pituitrin molecules, I feel that he would have been better off to simply invent and create imaginary names for two new fictional proteins rather than recycle two existing names in a silly way. Binder's fictional science method for attaining immortality is like saying that you could create a faster-than-light spaceship by combining a
VW Beetle and a
Sopwith Camel.
What is particularly annoying about Binder's approach to fictional science is that a single man working alone in his basement for a few years can create a spaceship, a time machine, a human-like robot or the Elixir of Life that confers immortality. It is difficult to resist calling such depictions of "scientific" discovery "
anti-science fiction".
Unable to leave the "radiogen" theory alone, Binder went on to suggest that the tiny radiogen furnaces inside cells could capture energy from cosmic rays. In April 1937 the story "A Million Years Ahead" by Edmond Hamilton was published. I have no idea if that story by Hamilton influenced Binder; I suppose cosmic rays were "in the air" and if you wanted a Sci Fi energy source, why not use cosmic rays? Even if it makes no biological sense.
What I love about the non-nonsensical "radiogen" theory is that it seems similar to the femtobot
endosymbionts that I imagine existing inside our bodies. In "The Conquest of Life", Binder goes on to state the hypothesis that immortality can be had through avoiding diseases and "
resistance to disease is the electrocution of germs by radiogens". Binder champions this fictional science of radiogens over the conventional view that immune system cells such as macrophages combat bacteria and viruses.
It became popular in science fiction to imagine interstellar spaceships that were powered by atomic energy. In biology, it was not until the 1940s that mitochondria were shown to be the tiny components of "protoplasm" responsible for generating most of the human body's useful chemical energy in the form of ATP. In 1937, I suppose it was to be expected that some science fiction story teller such as Otto Binder would pretend that living cells are powered by atomic energy.
The "radiogen theory" and the idea that ionizing radiation was a key source of energy in cells is long forgotten among biologists, but its ghostly presence still exists in old science fiction stories such as "The Conquest of Life" and "Methuselah's Children".
I'm glad I read "The Conquest of Life" since it holds clues to origin of Heinlein's odd ideas about radioactive vitamins.
By the end of "The Conquest of Life", Anton York has become an immortal god-like being who does not even need to eat. I suppose we are expected to accept that York's M-7 Elixir-boosted radiogens produce all the energy that his body needs by absorbing cosmic rays.
In my own stories set in the
Exodemic Fictional Universe, I imagine that humans can be converted into artificial life forms composed of
femtobots. Such "
replicoid" copies of humans do not need to eat.
Having complained (above) about Otto Binder's unrealistic depiction of science and technological advances, the question must be asked: can I do any better? Recently, I imagined a science fiction novel called Time Portal that was written by Emma Phillips in one of the past Realities of Earth. In Time Portal, a research scientist and his assistant discover how to travel into the past. However, Time Portal was written in the early 1800s and we can't expect its author to have been very sophisticated in her thinking about the style of scientific research that would be common in the 20th century.
Related Reading: more cosmic rays and Gladiator
Next: more stories from Thrilling Wonder Stories
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