The Bion Experiments by Wilhelm Reich

Author:Wilhelm Reich
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

CULTURES OF SOOT HEATED TO INCANDESCENCE. THE BIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF BROWNIAN MOVEMENT

A typical objection to the movement observed in the bion cultures being organic in nature is that this is a physical phenomenon known as Brownian movement. Brown himself is supposed to have regarded the motion, which he observed in particles of India ink, as a sign of life. Physicists explain the phenomenon in terms of the physical action of molecular movement. Whether or not Brownian movement was involved could only be settled experimentally: Are the particles which create the impression of organic movement in the solution of India ink culturable or not?

Initial tests to cultivate autoclaved India-ink solution directly on agar were not successful. Therefore, after several failures, I carried out the following experiment:

Soot was first dry-sterilized for three hours at 180°C; beef broth was allowed to stand for twenty-four hours in test tubes in the incubator in order to guarantee the sterility of the broth. Several blood agar and agar media were inoculated with soot dry-sterilized at 180°C as controls. If my theory was correct, this mixture should not produce any growth. The results were as expected: dry-sterilized soot does not produce any growth on agar. The soot was next heated to red heat for two to three minutes over a benzene gas flame and then immediately placed in one of the broth test tubes mentioned earlier. In the course of about ten minutes, the blackish dense turbidity turned gray, just as in the case of the incandescent coal. After twenty-four hours in the incubator, the broth solution, which exhibited a densely yellowish-white turbidity, was inoculated onto egg nutrient medium. Microscopic examination of the broth-soot solution revealed vigorously moving bions with the characteristics of coal bions. Over a period of twenty-four to forty-eight hours, a growth composed of individual hillocks of uniform color occurred. The broth had promoted swelling of the soot particles and the egg medium supplied the particles with the various nutrients. Then inoculations were made from the coating on the egg medium onto blood agar and agar. After only twelve hours, a bluish-white, creamy soft growth appeared. At 3000×, the microscope revealed formations different from those in the broth; they still clearly showed signs of having developed from bluish-black soot particles, but their movements were vigorous and smooth. Soot particles can thus be cultured without losing any of the conditions necessary for life. The movement which Brown had seen was the movement of soot (lampblack) bions from which life can develop. I believe I am fully justified in regarding the above experiment as a suitable refutation of the objection that the motion observed is physical in nature.

In the same way, I was able to culture ash from a central heating furnace and from charred wood. Under the microscope, the cultured formations had the same characteristics as the soot cultures.

Of eighteen consecutive experiments in which soot was heated to incandescence, only five failed, for reasons I was not able to identify. It was later found that

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