BASIC ASSUMPTIONS 15 



interest to quote from one Wilhelm Reich (1948). Reich has 

 developed the concept that living material accumulates units of 

 primordial energy which he calls " orgones." These orgones may 

 be taken up by small vesicles (bions) that exhibit certain similar- 

 ities to living material. By studying these bions and bion complexes 

 under the very high optical magnification of 5,000 times (" it is 

 not a matter of visualising finer structural detail but movement ") 

 Reich concludes that bacteria and Protozoa can arise from sterilised 

 organic and inorganic material. Thus from autoclaved grass he 

 observed the development of amoebae and other Protozoa. Reich 

 was not satisfied with the alternative explanation that the spores 

 might have been present in the grass since he had also obtained 

 similar amoebae from inorganic material such as sand or iron 

 filings placed in the sterilised medium! The bions give off 

 radiations which affect living material, and in some ways this 

 radiation resembles the mitogenetic radiation studied by Gurwitsch 

 (1926). It will be remembered that Gurwitsch claimed that the 

 mitogenetic rays which come off from living cells affect the division 

 rate of other cells. The experimental verification of mitogenetic 

 radiation has proved to be very difficult and at best inconclusive ; 

 the evidence is summarised in Hollaender and Schoeffel (1931) 

 and in Gray (1931), but as yet there has been no work on orgones 

 other than from Reich and his colleagues. The work of Reich is 

 of interest in that it shows that there are still " heretics " at work 

 on the age-old problem of the origin and nature of living organisms. 

 Joseph Needham, writing in his textbook Chemical Embryology 

 (1931) stated, " It may be remarked here, without irrelevance, 

 that the problem (of spontaneous generation) is still unsolved ; for 

 all that was proved by the experiments of Spallanzani was that 

 animals the size of rotifers and Protozoa do not originate spontane- 

 ously from broth, and all that was proved by those of Pasteur 

 was that organisms the size of bacteria do not originate de novo. 

 The knowledge which we have acquired in recent years of filter- 

 passing organisms such as the mosaic disease of the tobacco plant, 

 and phenomena such as the bacteriophage of Twort and d'Herelle 

 has reopened the whole matter, so that of the region between, for 

 example, the semi-living particles of the bacteriophage (10~ 15 g) 

 and the larger-sized colloidal aggregates (10~ 18 g) we know 

 absolutely nothing. The dogmatism with which the biologist of 



