Wilhelm Reich, Biologist

Psychoanalyst, political theorist, pioneer of body therapies, prophet of the sexual revolutionall fitting titles, but Wilhelm Reich has never been recognized as a serious laboratory scientist, despite his experimentation with bioelectricity and unicellular organisms. Wilhelm Reich, Biologist is an eye-opening reappraisal of one of twentieth-century sciences most controversial figuresperhaps the only writer whose scientific works were burned by both the Nazis and the U.S. government. Refuting allegations of pseudoscience that have long dogged Reichs research, James Strick argues that Reichs lab experiments in the mid-1930s represented the cutting edge of light microscopy and time-lapse micro-cinematography and deserve to be taken seriously as legitimate scientific contributions. Trained in medicine and a student of Sigmund Freud, Reich took to the laboratory to determine if Freuds concept of libido was quantitatively measurable. His electrophysiological experiments led to his discovery of microscopic vesicles (he called them bions), which Reich hypothesized were instrumental in originating life from nonliving matter. Studying Reichs laboratory notes from recently opened archives, Strick presents a detailed account of the bion experiments, tracing how Reich eventually concluded he had discovered an unknown type of biological radiation he called orgone. The bion experiments were foundational to Reichs theory of cancer and later investigations of orgone energy. Reichs experimental findings and interpretations were considered discredited, but not because of shoddy lab technique, as has often been claimed. Scientific opposition to Reichs experiments, Strick contends, grew out of resistance to his unorthodox sexual theories and his Marxist political leanings.