Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 67 — page 130: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

There is more than one man like— Dr. Blaise | BY ROBERT LAWSON E ARE NOT GODS, BUT WW sometimes certain gifted members of our species get very close to tapping the power sources of the Deity. Such a man was Dr. Julius Blaise, probably the most brilliant biologist of all time. Charles Darwin postulated evolution.Dr. Blaise proved it by putting it into reverse. “It was that delightful little genus of Ascidians, Clavel- lina,” he said, “‘that first gave me the idea.” Clavellina, it should be ex- plained for. the benefit of those who may not know, is a marine creature exhibiting various characteristics which show it to be an offshoot of the vertebrate stock. Beauti- fully translucent, it reveals minute blood vessels, heart, thorax, breathing system and reproductive organs. It is especially interesting because when it is placed in unchanged water for any length of time, as. a result of combined starvation and auto-intoxica- tion, it gradually shrinks in upon itself, its breathing slits or gills cease to function, its organs become denser until, finally, as the result of a retrogressive process, it is no more than a small opaque ball less than a fifth of its original size and bearing no resemblance whatsoever to a fully-grown Ascidian. And yet it does not die—it merely continues to exist in another and altogether more rudi- mentary form. It is, in fact, a complete example of involu- tion as opposed to evolution. “I have worked on _ the assumption that what is pos- sible to one species is possible to all,’ said Dr. Blaise as he proceeded to demonstrate to a startled scientific world how, by an unspecified system of serum injection, it was the easiest thing in the world to transform a fully-grown, robust looking frog into the most nondescript and in- significant of tadpoles. 129 conicloooks.com