Iowa's Manure Lagoons:

     Untapped Fountain Of Youth?

     "There's an incredible amount of protein, nutrients, and vitamins in there," says the 46 year old medical researcher who has just signed a multi-million dollar contract with a Parisian cosmetics manufacturer. "All those things that can help a woman keep her youthful glow and vivarance."

     Now, I'm not one to splash eau d'pig-poop water water in my face and hair but that's just what Dr. Martczek wants women to do. He believes he has stumbled across a dynamic new formula that stops the aging process of human skin and lasts indefinitely. Naturally, when I first heard of Martczek's ideas, I was wary. But after a tour through his small refinery lab, he convinced me that his products are genuine.

     "Everyday, 500 gallons of manure lagoon water fills this here tank and is heated to 180 degrees farenheit to kill certain bacteria that digest proteins that I have discovered help regenerate skin tissue. Naturally, I use them only after many sterilization and filtration steps. My product is completely safe," Dr. Martczek claims.

     He's talking about a labyrinth of pipes and vats strung along the walls and ceiling of a machine shed on his farm. But the fascinating story is how he made his discovery:

     "In 1982, I was doing Research Medicine at the Univeristy of Emmetsburg Research Farm near Old Town where I used pigs to study how fat absorbtion in their feed would effect cornary blockage. They were set up in individual confinement pens with screen floors and troughs underneath. Every Friday morning, I'd come over early and measure the amount of food eaten by each hog and then the amount of manure they produced and remove a sample of it to see how much fat was undigested. I started out with thirty hogs. Every month, I'd slaughter one to measure the amount of coronary blockage. And have a hog-roast, of course.

     "The pigs were eating a special high-fat content feed which was created by the Ag department and stored with other experimental feeds in a storage locker at the farm. The animals at the farm were fed by students in the work-study project, one of which was a particularly lazy, careless and wholly inarticulate boy named Kevin Clayton.

     "It was the week right before Christmas break and Kevin had managed to be left with a full week's work all to himself. On my usual Friday morning visit, the place looked like it had been hit by a bomb. The animals were squealing terrifically as I entered. My pigs had their water but their food was made up of various different feeds; I could tell by the color. I was really pissed off---my work was compromised. Coming around a corner to the feed locker, I found Kevin sleeping on a pile of spilled feed, his arms wrapped around a bottle of cheap wine and clutching a tall, red plastic bong. I was so mad, I kicked him in the stomach and shouted at him to wake. Then I went into the storage locker.

     "The door was swinging open and I found the lights weren't working. Feed crunched under my feet and as my eyes adjusted to the dark I could see that all the bags had been pulled from their neatly organized shelves to the floor and spilled. I left the locker and went stalked past Kevin out to the office building. While I was on the phone to the Farm Manager, Jim Schenk, I saw Kevin's rusting car skid down the gravel lane and out onto the county road.

     Jim hurried over and by mid morning we'd discovered that Kevin had spent several nights in the confinement barn wreaking havoc---not only on my research but also on the projects of four docotoral candidates---by not feeding the right feed to the right animals. An hour later, there was nothing to do but go home. Later that afternoon, the bomb dropped.

     Jim called and said that Kevin had opened several twenty-year old sacks of experimental medical feed developed by the U.S. Ag Department and Department of Energy to counter exposure to nuclear weapons. Because of the threat of contamination, not only would all the animals be destroyed but the barn might not be availible for a year or more. It was impossible to know for sure as the DOE was not forth coming with information. A day later, the DOE requested that the hogs be studied for effects of the old anti-radiation feed. At anyrate, my research was delayed indefinitely.

     "Now, at that time, the farm had a large manure lagoon because it produced much more manure than it could spread on its fields. It was about 8 feet deep ringed with grass and tall weeds with a floating dock extending some twelve feet out where temperature, PH, and other monitering instruments were located. Normally, the lagoon had only a pungent, nose wrinkling aroma. But for six months as the manure from the medicated hogs was pumped into the lagoon, a penetrating reek boiled up into the air. Jim tried everything he could think of to curtail the stench but nothing worked. The lagoon just wasn't normal, either: it bubbled and fizzed constantly, sending the stink into everything with in 600 yards.

     "Across the road from the Farm lived Old Mrs. Hvacek, an elderly farm widow who had gone senile and was being looked after by her niece. Mrs. Hvacek complained bitterly about the stink and had managed to convince herself that the University Farm was just a cover for making moonshine or burning people alive or killing elephants. Several times, she contacted the FBI and ATF to report that she heard screams and saw bright flashing lights. Her complaints were politely ignored and Jim was urged to do something concrete about the reek.

     "I was out at the farm on the morning of April 17, 1984 talking to Jim to see how the study was progressing when Old Mrs. Hvacek's niece ran into the office screaming that her aunt gotten out of the house to go do something about the lagoon. Jim and I ran out down only to behold the night-gown clad old girl carefully creep over the twisting and undulating dock as the brown lagoon waters boiled underneath. Holding on stubbornly to the plank holding the monitoring instruments, she brought out a small box of borax and dumped it into the lagoon. At that moment, she slipped and fell head long into the roiling dark waters.

     Jim was bounding across the dock before I could blink. He reached the end and lay down on the planking grabbing into the reeking simmering waters for Mrs. Hvacek. Mrs. Hvacek, meanwhile, ignored him and seemed to enjoy the churning warm jacuzzi-like water. But gradually the weight of her sodden flannel night gown sapped her strength and pulled her under.

     Just as she went under, Jim managed to snag hold of her night gown. He was nearly pulled in himself but an instant later, he brought Mrs. Hvacek up, her long white hair draped over her face. As Jim hauled her up, she coughed up a large quantity of brown water and gasped a deep, raw breath. But when I laid her down and brushed aside her hair, the sight of her face sent a shock of disbelief through my body. Her niece and Jim gasped, awestruck. Old Mrs. Hvacek's face was now that of a 23 year old woman.

     She was in deep shock, her vitals precarious, and because of her age, I was especially worried about her heart. Jim waited for none of this but dashed off to summon the ambulance. In a few minutes, Mrs. Hvacek was firmly clamped to a ventilation unit and IV drip in the U of E Hospital Emerency room. A few hours later she stabilized enough to be moved to a regular room.

     In the meantime, her doctor and I poured over her blood work results. There was nothing out of the ordinary except for the presence of androgens common in younger people. Perplexed, we were able to obtain a skin tissue sample. What we found was altogether impossible.

     The skin of the aged normally shows signs of being in an atrophied state, being paper thin and wrinkled after some of the dermis has been destroyed. This was not the case. Levels of karatonin, elastin, collagen, and especially lipids were present in surprisingly abundant levels. Cells were actually re-growing from advanced degenerated states!

     "The rest was very simple analytic science. I took samples of the lagoon, isolated a lipid soluable protein present that we also found in Mrs. Hvacek's skin. I soon found it was nearly impossible to duplicate in the lab, so working backwards, as it were, I figured out what the pigs were eating that created this protein in the lagoon. I ran a few tests on a few volunteers----voila! Beauty and youth from pig poop!"

     I have used a few of the sample bottles that Martczek gave me. The effects have been nothing short of surprising---my crow's feet are gone and other parts seem fuller. Unfortunately, the effects are only skin deep. A few months after Mrs. Hvacek's accident, she passed away at the ripe old age of 85, though too senile to appreciate her dazzling youthful appearance.