In our incessant search for scientific truths and applications, humans prove themselves often to be totally irrational and even wierd. Of course, our reasons are usually seemingly rational and normal.

Many years ago, about 30 or so, I had occasion to visit my then brother-in-law's laboratory at a well-known university. We'll call him Brother.

Brother was a professor in Chemistry and a devoted researcher, he also loved animals very much and owned two terrible pooches - Beagles - which he had saved from laboratory experiments by buying them from the university. Allowed to run loose they would enter homes along the street in which they lived, steal shoes, slippers and whatever, and deposit these in Brother?s bedroom. So he spent a good few spare moments returning property of his neighbours who had learned from experience where they might find their lost slipper. Because of their ceaseless barking he was ultimately forced to have their vocal chords cut (a few times, if I remember well - they seemed to repair themselves.) As a result one was always greeted by a duet of croaking yaps. But that is not really what this entry is about, and we shall leave that aside behind.

At the time Brother was researching certain chemical substances to help control human heartbeats, and it was with some excitement that I agreed to accompany him to his laboratory that Saturday afternoon. He had forgotten something that he needed.

As we approached the laboratory, Brother explained that they were doing on-going experiments on his new drug. I had visions of a brightly lit room with glass tubes running all over, plenty of bubbles, and smoky steam emitting from flasks. As we entered, I realized that I was wrong; the laboratory was huge with rows of tables filling the cavernous room - it was then that I realized, that the 'laboratory' was obviously also a lecture hall. Being a Saturday afternoon, the laboratory was empty and a prevailing gloomy darkness hung in the air.

Brother greeted someone familiarly, and at first I could not see any person. Then, there she was. At the other end of the laboratory - close to a window - sat a young lady in a white coat at the end of one of the long tables. As we walked over, I saw that the lady was working on something in a petri dish. Next to the dish, on a slab, lay a mouse on its back, as if waiting for its tummy to be tickled. Of course, that would have been ineffective, as it was dead and its intestines were visible through the slit in the tickling-area.

Perhaps realizing that the scene seemed somewhat surrealistic, Brother felt the need to explain why this young lady was killing mice on a Saturday afternoon in a dark laboratory, and playing with their uteri. He explained that she was a lab assistant, and that they needed to use the uterus of dead mice (he gave a reason for the specific need for using mice, which I can no longer remember.) When the mice-uteri were exposed to the chemical, he said, they would contract, and the observations noted for the records. I remember trying to visualize a link between mouse uteri and my heart, but left it at that when I was treated to a display of a tiny uterus jerking when the chemical was applied to it. That must have been when a memory-marker kicked in.

Besides realizing that many she-mice gave up their lives for our hearts, I have no idea what became of the chemical and the research results. One imagines, that the chemical became a successful medicine for those with weak hearts, and that it filled the pockets of some major pharmaceutical or other.

As I'm writing this, I remember a short news-reel that I saw at some time during the years that followed. The scene was of a regiment of white fluffy rabbits, all firmly restrained in transparent plastic boxes, being forced to smoke one cigarette after another - puffs of smoke were being exhaled by each rabbit every few seconds as if it was a complex living machine.

The rabbits did not have to flick their own ash, and at least the cigarettes were filtered.