No Ape-Child

Ever since he told a convention of physiologists at Stockholm (TIME, Aug. 16) that he had replaced the ovaries of Nora, mature chimpanzee, with a woman's ovaries, and then succeeded in; impregnating her with human sperms by artificial means, Dr. Serge Voronoff of Paris has been the subject of much lay and scientific speculation. Nora's baby, biologically human, but prenatally an ape, was to be born in January. In August she was reported "progressing normally." Then no more bulletins . . . until last week. Pressed for information, Dr. Voronoff made answer:

1) After receiving the human ovaries, Nora had menstruated as regularly as before.

2) After artificial fecundation she had stopped menstruating.

3) After 90 days of apparent pregnancy, she had menstruated again, and regularly thereafter.

4) "Did she abort at three months, or was the halt in her menses during the three months due to some other thing, to an unknown cause? It is impossible to say, except that artificial fecundation rarely succeeds."

5) "For the present Nora has served to demonstrate that a chimpanzee deprived of its ovaries can be 'regulated' afresh if one grafts in her the ovaries of a woman, which proves the close relationship between the higher apes and ourselves, since our organs are interchangeable. I therefore have reason to say that the higher apes constitute a station of spare [exchange] parts for the human machine."

6) "As for . . . the question of fecundating the borrowed ovaries, one must make new experiments, for in scientific research it is necessary to have much patience." Scientists awaited the publication of Dr. Voronoff's full report on human-ovaried Nora, meantime noting as fallacies in Dr. Voronoff's reports to date:

1) The absence of a "control," i. e., another human-ovaried chimpanzee, not fecundated, to isolate the cause of Nora's halted menstruation.

2) Lack of evidence to prove that Nora's own ovaries were completely removed, that the human ovaries were grafted in exact position.