Whale Y. Horse

The race horse Equipoise (1928-38) was a big daisy on the U. S. turf. In six years of racing he won $338,610 for his owner, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney. In 51 starts he finished first 32 times.* He was descended through a line of thoroughbreds from the great English-born horse, Eclipse, which was foaled in 1845 of mixed English and Arabian ancestry. In racing form, Equipoise weighed about 1,000 Ibs. When he died he weighed 1,150.

The white whale (Delphinapterus leucas) is a splendid denizen of the arctic deeps. The young, three or four feet long at birth, are black; the adults, 16 to 18 feet long, are milky white. They have highly developed blood systems in the chest region, and their brains are plentifully supplied with blood.

Dr. George Crile, 75, famed, far-ranging surgeon and biological researcher, and his associates at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation are interested in comparing the major energy-controlling organs--brain, heart, thyroid and adrenal glands--of various energetic animals. They have studied specimens of 3,700 species, including the featherless biped, Homo sapiens. On one of their arctic expeditions they caught six white whales, one of which weighed almost exactly the same as Equipoise .when he died. The Whitney stables politely allowed them to take the organs they wanted from the great horse's carcass. Last week Dr. Crile's solid, grey research associate, Dr. Daniel Paul Quiring, gave the figures on whale v. horse at the Philadelphia meeting of the American Philosophical Society.

The horse's heart was somewhat bigger than the whale's--4,455 grams to 3,181--and so were his adrenals--47 grams to 35. But the whale's brain was nearly three times as big as the horse's--2,355 grams to 809--and the whale's thyroid was more than three times as big--108 grams to 33. On the whole, therefore, the whale's organic power plant was bigger. Scientific moral: Old Mother Nature, whose selection produced Delphinapterus leucas, is a better hand at turning out an efficient biological engine than young Homo sapiens, breed he ever so artfully.

* But lost three of these races through disqualifications.

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