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National Resources Planning Board 



product. Work of this kind constitutes a far wider 

 sort of exploration. Its success has already been 

 attested on numerous occasions, most dramatically, 

 perhaps, through the various hydrogenation techniques. 

 The field of biochemistry is sufficiently well recog- 

 nized, and has been established long enough for its 

 educational facilities to be obtained readily. Bio- 

 chemistry is recognized as a definite entity in the 

 chemical departments of most of our outstanding uni- 

 versities, and a good share of educational time and 

 talent is devoted to its better students. The principal 

 improvement for which we can hope is that the educa- 

 tional facihties in the field may be broadened in geo- 

 graphic scope, so as to mclude a good many of our 

 smaller institutions of learning from which they are 

 now absent. The situation is far from being as satis- 

 factory as this in the border-line field which we shall 

 next consider. 



Biophysics 



The science of biophysics is designed to fiill the same 

 borderline position between the domain of physics and 

 biology as is occupied by biochemistiy between biology 

 and chemistry. It is, however, a very much newer 

 science than the latter, and much less completely 

 recognized today. By the same token, its very best 

 days lie all before it, and we are only beginning to 

 conceive of its coming immense industrial importance. 

 It is one of those border-line fields which is deserving 

 of the most vigorous and active encouragement. For, 

 just as chemistry as an industrial science is far more 

 widely recognized today than physics in the same role, 

 although physics is potentially quite as important, so 

 the position in industry of the handmaiden of physics, 

 biophysics, is not so clearly understood as is that of 

 biochemistry. Biophysics is still in that stage where 

 the industrial importance of certain special applications 

 of the science is widely recognized and acknowledged, 

 but only the veriest beginning has been made of linking 

 these isolated bits, and the methods wiiich achieved 

 them, into a unified and coordinated discipline, backed 

 by a suitable educational system and suitable profes- 

 sional recognition. All this must come in the future, 

 but the sooner it can arrive, the sooner and the more 

 will American industry profit. 



It must suffice here to notice in passing some of those 

 isolated and more striking examples of the industrial 

 applications of biophysics, considering those as illus- 

 trative of the sort of service which would be performed 

 over a much broader field by a unified discipline. We 

 may then consider for a moment some of the steps 

 wliich might profitably be taken in the direction of the 

 establishment of such a discipline. 



Biophysics is concerned with physical processes in 

 Uving material, with the use of physical means in 



measuring biological reactions, and with the reactions 

 of biological materials to physical agents. In conse- 

 quence, its work fails rouglily into two main divisions. 

 The first deals with the reactions of living organisms to 

 physical agents, such as heat, light, and the various 

 radiations of longer or shorter wave length. The 

 second is concerned with the accmate physical measure- 

 ment of biological processes by means of instruments 

 devised espcciallj' for the purpose and made possible 

 through the discipline of biophysics. Both fields have 

 extremely important industrial as well as medical 

 applications. The two spheres cannot be entirely 

 delimited artificially, so that it is inevitable that each 

 field to be cited will, in many cases, share the charac- 

 teristics of both. 



Biophysicists have made a beginning in the study of 

 the reactions of living organisms to electromagnetic 

 radiations throughout the spectrum, and the applica- 

 tions which have already been made to medicine and 

 to industry have been considerable. Since the work is, 

 relatively speaking, only begun, the future seems most 

 promising. 



Biophysical investigations in the shorter wavelength 

 radio region have resulted in the development of the 

 "fever machine," and the development of the fever 

 therapy methods in medicine. Other industrial appli- 

 cations have stemmed from the same method. Such is 

 the use of short-wave radio fields in relation to the dry- 

 ing of oils, the condensations of resins, and other modi- 

 fications in industrially important products. It has 

 even been investigated in relation to the preparation of 

 special types of food products, such as some of the dried 

 cereals, and no one can tell what the future may bring 

 in further applications of the method. 



Biophysical investigations in the infrared region have 

 resulted in the development of the infrared "translux" 

 viewer, of special value in certain types of cancer diag- 

 nosis. Investigations of particidar importance to the 

 agricultural and agronomic industries have been made 

 of the effect of infrared irradiation upon photosyn- 

 thesis in green plants, and upon the rate of laying and 

 rate of growth of birds in the poultry industry. A par- 

 ticularly interesting application of infrared spectro- 

 scopy has recently been made to important studies in 

 photosynthesis, the infrared absorption spectrum of 

 carbon dioxide being used as a delicate criterion of the 

 rate of absorption of this gas by crop plants under var- 

 ious conditions of soil, moisture, and illumination. The 

 study of soil heating in relation to root growth and 

 crop production is also a most important one for the 

 agricidtural industry. Special infrared lamps have been 

 developed to aid in the drying of natural oils in paints 

 and varnishes. 



Because of the relatively much longer time that the 

 visible spectrum has been studied by man, and because 



