"Oh, Rats"

When Crown Princess Juliana of The Netherlands bore a baby girl last year, many Dutchmen were downcast. They wanted a boy. In Manhattan thoughtful Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson of the tabloid Daily News got to thinking about this and about all the family headaches, royal crises, useless conversation and bad guesses caused by similar uncertainties throughout history. He told his staff to see what could be done to end them.

By last week it looked as though Publisher Patterson's curiosity was about to wind up in either: 1) the biggest fiasco of his career; or 2) the scientific scoop of the decade. Because topflight geneticists would not work with a tabloid newspaper, the News arranged with the commercial Applied Research Laboratories of Dayton, N. J., headed by Biologist Thomas Durfee, to do its experimenting. Director Durfee got in a supply of scientifically bred white rats whose pictures duly appeared in the News alongside Murderer Robert Irwin, Spy Johanna Hofmann, the Duchess of Windsor. Following methods suggested by earlier experiments in Germany and England he douched female rats with 2% or 3% bicarbonate of soda solution to get male offspring, with 1% or 2% lactic acid solution to get females, then mated them as quickly as possible. In forty-two litters since last July, Director Durfee has reported 100% success in predetermining the predominant sex. Rat A845 (see cut) was douched once with lactic acid and bore six females, two males. Then she was douched with bicarbonate and bore four males, two females.

The News's 3,000,000 readers have been profoundly apathetic to these revelations, even when Publisher Patterson gave them front page headlines on rat news at the height of the German pogroms. Reaction of scientists has ranged from cool to openly hostile. When Publisher Patterson tried to talk about his big story to a pretty nurse in his doctor's office she exclaimed: "Oh, rats--we tried that at Johns Hopkins . . . and it can't be done."

Last week he was getting more encouragement. Two midwest institutions (University of Wisconsin, Kansas State College of Agriculture) are checking the News experiments. In Tennessee tests have started on a herd of prize county-owned cattle. Raisers of horses, rabbits, mink, foxes, guinea pigs, hogs have asked for directions.

To the scores of parents who have written in for advice, the News returns a stock, mimeographed answer: "We are unable to provide any information or advice regarding application of the technique to human beings." But unless his laboratory is fooling him, Publisher Patterson believes he can some day give a different answer. Says he: "Then maybe people will agree that we've been sitting on a big story here."

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