Speaking on behalf of the experts’ panel Arturo Stein, Professor of Anatomy at the University and an eminent scientist, gave evidence that was listened to with unabated attention.
“On instruction of the Court,” he began, “we examined the animals and the young man called Ichthyander that had all been operated upon by Professor Salvator. We also examined his small but well-appointed surgery and laboratories. In his work Professor Salvator made extensive use not only of the latest techniques, such as eletric dissection and ultraviolet disinfection, but also of a number of instruments unknown to modem plastic surgery. These apparently were made for him according to his own designs. I do not intend to dwell at any length on Professor Salvator’s experiments on animals. In a nutshell, they consisted of a series of operations as daring in conception as they were brilliant in execution. He transplanted tissues, whole organs and limbs, sewed two animals together, changed monorespiratory animals into duorespiratory and vice versa, transformed females into males and experimented in rejuvenation. In Salvator’s orchards we also found children of different Indian tribes ranging in age from a few months to fourteen years.”
“What was the state you found them in?” asked the prosecutor.
“All the children were in excellent condition. Indeed they looked quite happy. Many of them owed Salvator their very lives. The Indians believed in him and brought him their children from far afield.”
A sigh was heard in the hushed hall.
The prosecutor began to fidget. Now that he had got his cue from the bishop the expert’s warm words jarred upon his ears.
“Are you going to suggest that the operations the accused carried out served any justifiable purpose?” he asked the expert.
But the presiding judge, a stem-faced silver-haired man, fearing lest the expert answer in the alternative, hastened to interpose.
“The Court is not interested in the expert’s personal opinions on scientific matters. Please proceed, Professor. What were your findings as to the young man Ichthyander of the Araucanian tribe?”
“We found that Ms body was covered with man-made scales,” Professor Stein continued, “of some unknown material, easy to bend but hard to pierce. We are still awaiting the results of its analysis. When swimming Ichthyander used a pair of goggles fitted with special flint glass with an index of refraction near two which enabled him to see better underwater. When we removed the scales we detected a round hole about four inches in diameter under each shoulder-blade covered with five thin strips, the whole looking similar to a shark’s gills.”
A muffled exclamation of surprise was heard in the hall.
“Yes,” the expert continued, “surprising as it must seem, Ichthyander possesses both human lungs and a shark’s gills. That is why he can live both on land and in water.”
“An amphibian?” the prosecutor said ironically.
“Yes, in fact a human amphibian.”
“But how could Ichthyander come to have a shark’s gills?” asked the presiding judge.
The expert spread his arms abroad.
“That is a puzzle to which only Professor Salvator holds the answer,” he said. “I shall try, however, to sum up our opinion for you. According to the bioge-netic law of Haeckel the organism in its development is to a great extent an epitome of the form-modifications undergone by the successive ancestors of the species in the course of their historic evolution. So it can be safely said that man’s distant forebears once breathed with their gills.”
The prosecutor half-rose in his seat to protest but was motioned back by the presiding judge.
“Here’s some embryology to support it. By the twentieth day an embryonic skull shows a set of four parallel ridges, the so-called visceral arches. But later the human foetus’s would-be gills undergo a transformation: the first visceral arch develops into the acoustic duct with the ossicles and the Eustachian tube, its lower part turning into the lower jaw; the second arch develops into the hyoid bone; the third into the body and two processes of the thyroid cartilage. This is the normal development and we do not consider that Professor Salvator could have arrested it in the case of Ichthyander. There are on record cases of even adults having an unclosed gill-cleft on the throat directly under the lower jaw, the so-called branchial fistula, but there can be no question of their breathing through them. Had there been, however, any interference with the normal development, the gills would have developed at the expense of the organ of hearing and other functions, making Ichthyander into a monster half-fish. But Ichthyander is a normally developed young man with good hearing, a well-pronounced lower jaw and sound lungs, and besides he has full-grown gills. How Ichthyander’s gills and lungs function, what their interaction is, if any, whether his gills get their water via the mouth and lungs or through the two small orifices we discovered on his body directly above each gill-opening — we do not know. Nor could we answer these questions without an autopsy. This is, I repeat again, a puzzle for the solution of which we have to refer to Professor Salvator. Only Professor Salvator can explain to us the origin of the dog-like jaguars and other such animals as well as of the amphibious monkeys, Ichthyander’s doubles.”
“What is your general conclusion?” asked the presiding judge.
The expert, himself a well-known surgeon, said simply:
“Frankly speaking I can’t make head or tail of it. I can only say that what Professor Salvator did, nobody but a man of genius could do. But it does look as if Professor Salvator on reaching his consummate degree of skill, decided that he could take humans or animals to pieces and put them together in any manner or arrangement he thought best. And though he has been doing this, and with brilliance, nonetheless his daring and scope border on what I’m forced to say looks like insanity.”
At this Salvator gave a little contemptuous smile. He had no idea that the experts had resolved to alleviate his lot by pleading his insanity.
“I do not want to produce the impression that such is our considered opinion,” the speaker said, catching sight of Salvator’s smile, “but we do suggest the accused be submitted to expert medical examination.”
“The Court will consider your insanity plea in due time,” said the presiding judge. “Professor Salvator, do you intend to give the Court any explanations of the questions raised by the experts and the prosecutor?”
“Yes,” Salvator said, “I do, and I also intend to make it my last word.”
SALVATOR’S EXPLANATION
Salvator had risen in his seat and was now running his eye over the hall as if trying to locate somebody. In the front row he saw the bishop and let his sweeping eye stop for a moment, while a faint smile skimmed his lips, before running it farther back, picking out, as he did so, Baltasar, Cristo and Zurita. Then he started to scan the audience again, more careful this time.
“I can’t see my victim in Court,” he said finally.
“I’m your victim! “ Baltasar shouted all of a sudden, jerking up from his seat and resuming it only after a sharp tug administered by Cristo.
“What victim do you mean?” said the presiding judge. “If you mean the animals you have maimed the Court has decided against exhibiting them here. As far as the human amphibian is concerned, he’s in the Court building.”
“I mean God,” Salvator said in an earnest, quiet voice.
On hearing that the presiding judge fell back in his chair in consternation. Has Salvator suddenly gone mad, he thought, or is he perhaps feigning insanity to escape prison?
“Whatever do you mean?” he asked.
“I expect that should be clear to the Court,” said Salvator. “Who’s the principal and only victim in the present case? Obviously God. According to the prosecution my work has undermined His authority by making what are alleged to be inroads on His domain. He likes what He created, then up comes a doctor and says, “This is bad; that ought to be altered,’ and starts altering what God did according to his own lights.”
“This is blasphemy! I want the exact words
of the accused put on record,” the prosecutor interposed with the air of a man whose sacred feelings have been violated.
Salvator shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m only summing up what it says in the indictment. Isn’t that just what it boils down to? At first I was only charged with carrying out vivisections and causing disfigurement. Now another charge is being lined up against me, that of sacrilege. What wind has blown that in? Not from the direction of the Cathedral, by any chance?” and Salvator looked straight at the bishop.
“You have only yourselves to blame for having built up a case where prosecution relies on God as a plaintiff while Charles Darwin shares the prisoner’s dock with me. Perhaps I’m wounding the feelings of some people present here, but I will say once again that the organisms of animals and even of man are not perfect and can, indeed, do with improvement. I expect the bishop Juan de Garcilaso here in Court will bear me out on this.”
This caused quite a rustle in the hall.
“In 1915, in fact very shortly before I left for the front,” Salvator went on, “I happened to effect a slight improvement in the worthy bishop’s organism by cutting out his appendix, that useless and risk-ridden appendage of the caecum or, in popular parlance, blind gut. On my surgeon’s table my priestly patient did not raise any objections to the sacrilege I was about to commit by cutting out part of his body made after God’s image. Can you deny that?” Salvator asked the bishop looking straight at him.
Juan de Garcilaso, a faint flush mounting to his pallid features, sat stock-still, his thin fingers, clenched in his lap, trembling slightly.
“And wasn’t there another case at the time I still had my practice? Hadn’t I a visit, and a request to be rejuvenated, from our respected prosecutor, Sr. Augusto de-”
The prosecutor leapt up in protest but his words drowned in loud laughter.
“I would ask you to keep to the subject, please,” the presiding judge said with asperity.
“That would be best asked of the indictment’s authors,” said Salvator. “It was they who gave this turn to the case in the first place. Apparently certain people here cannot reconcile themselves to the idea that they, like everybody else, are monkeys or even fishes able to speak and hear only because their gill arches have developed into organs of hearing and speaking. Well, not exactly monkeys or fishes, to be sure, but their close descendants,” and turning to the prosecutor, who was showing all signs of impatience, Salvator said, “Calm yourself; I do not propose to give a talk here on the theory of evolution.” Then, after a pause, he went on, “The trouble with man is not that he has descended from the animal, but that he has not ceased to be an animal, vicious, rude, unintelligent. My learned colleague could have spared you his frightening discourse on embryonic development. For I have never had recourse to influencing embryos or crossing animals, for that matter. I’m a surgeon and a surgeon’s knife has always been my only instrument. Surgery often involves transplantation. So, to try and improve on the methods used, I started experimenting on animals. My ultimate aim was the replacement of man’s diseased organs and limbs.
“The operated animals I kept in my laboratory, studying the behaviour of organs and limbs often transplanted into environments entirely new for them. When my observations were over, the animals were transferred to the garden. This is the way my zoological gardens came to be built up. I was especially keen on transplanting tissues and organs between far-removed species, those of fishes and mammals, for instance. And in this particular field I’ve achieved what contemporary scientists still think impossible. But is it, really? I hold that what I alone can do today the run of surgeons will be doing tomorrow. Professor Stein perhaps knows of the latest operations performed by the German surgeon Sauerbruch, who succeeded in substituting a sound shin-bone for a diseased thigh-bone.”
“Yes, but what about Ichthyander?” asked the expert.
“Ah Ichthyander, now Ichthyander’s my special pride. In his case the difficulty lay not so much in the technique as in the need to change the major functions of a human organism. Half a dozen monkeys were sacrificed in preliminary work before I became quite satisfied in my own mind that I could safely operate on achUd.”
“What was the nature of the operation?” asked the presiding judge.
“I transplanted a young shark’s gills onto a child which enabled him to live both on land and in water.”
There were exclamations of surprise among the audience. The reporters present rushed outside to phone the news to their editors.
“Later on I was even able to improve on my original success. The amphibious monkey-my latest result — can live indefinitely long in either element at no risk to health. Now Ichthyander cannot stay outside water for more than three, or at the most, four days in succession. Long stays on land tend to overtax his lungs and dry up his gills, the first sign of this being shooting pains in his sides. Unfortunately in my absence Ichthyander went off his regimen. He used his lungs a great deal too often with grievous results. The balance is upset and the amphibious man is turning into a human fish. In Ms present condition he has to spend most of his time in the water.”
“How did you arrive at the idea of creating an amphibious man and what was your object in doing so?” the prosecutor said, having asked for and received the judge’s permission.
“The same idea prompted me: that man is not perfect. Having gained a great deal through evolution as compared to his animal ancestors man has lost much in the process. Living in the water, for instance, would provide an immense advantage for man. And indeed, why shouldn’t he enjoy this advantage? We know from the theory of evolution that all the land animals now existing have evolved from water animals. And we also know that some of the land animals went back later. The dolphin was a fish originally, then came on land and became a mammal, only to return to the water later though remaining a mammal, just like the whale. They both breathe with lungs. A dolphin can also be made into an amphibian. In fact that’s what Ichthyander was asking of me so that his friend — a dolphin — could stay longer with him under water. And I was going to perform the necessary operation. Ichthyander — the first fish among men and the first man among fish-couldn’t help feeling lonely. Now it would be quite different if many more people followed his example. That mighty element-water-would then lie conquered at man’s feet. I’d like to give you a glimpse of its might. As much as three-quarters of the earth is covered by water. But that’s only surface. Men could settle the ocean in layers. Thousands of millions of men would have ample accommodation as well as an inexhaustible supply.of food and raw materials close to hand.
“And take the ocean’s power potential. It is a known fact that the ocean waters take up the equivalent of 79,000 million HP in solar energy. But for air heating and other leakages the ocean would have been boiling long ago. What use does man put this practically unlimited store of energy to? Almost none at all.
“And what about the power of ocean currents? The Gulf Stream and the Florida Current alone carry between them 91,000 million tons of water per hour, about 3,000 times as much as a major river. Add to this the power of the other ocean currents. What use does man put this power to? Again almost none.
“And what about the power of ocean waves and tides? You should know that a wave can have a striking force of three and a half tons per square foot, can reach as high as 142 feet and lift with it as much as one thousand tons, say, of rocks; that the highest tides touch the fifty-five-foot mark. What use does man put these forces to? Once again almost none.
“On land man cannot go very high above the Earth’s surface or very deep below it. In the ocean life goes on everywhere-from North Pole to South, from surface to bottom.
“What use do we put all this unlimited wealth to? We catch fish-and that only goes skin-deep, as it were, leaving the greater depths untapped; we collect sponges, coral, pearls, weeds-and that’s about everything.
“We do some submarine work by way of erecting piers for bridges and da
ms and refloating sunken ships. And even that is done at the expense of hard work and risk, and often loss of life. But then what can you really expect of man if two minutes underwater is enough to kill him?
“Now it would be quite a different proposition if man could live and work underwater. Without diving suits or canned oxygen. The fabulously rich deposits he would then discover! Ichthyander told me once — no, I don’t want to conjure up the ogre of human avarice. He used to bring me samples of rare metals and ores he picked up on the sea-bed. The samples were small but the deposits might have been immense.
“And what about sunken treasures? It will suffice to recall the tragic fate of the Lusitania sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast in 1916. Apart from the valuables the fifteen hundred passengers might have had on themselves the Lu-sitania carried in her strongroom gold coin to the tune of 150 million dollars and 50 million dollars’ worth of bullion. (Exclamations in the Court). Besides, there were two cases of diamonds on board the ship bound for Amsterdam. The consignment included one of the world’s largest brilliants, the Caliph, worth many millions of dollars. Of course, even a man like Ichthyander could not descend to such depths; to do this a man would have to be created fthi’s drew a snort of indignation from the prosecutor), capable of withstanding high pressure like deepwater fish. And this is not impossible. Just a matter of time.”
The Amphibian Page 16