Strick, James E. (Author)
Harvard University Press
Physical Details: 467 pp.; portraits; ill.; bibl.; index
Language: English
Psychoanalyst, political theorist, pioneer of body therapies, prophet of the sexual revolution—all 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 science’s most controversial figures—perhaps 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 Reich’s research, James Strick argues that Reich’s 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 Freud’s 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 Reich’s 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 Reich’s theory of cancer and later investigations of orgone energy. Reich’s experimental findings and interpretations were considered discredited, but not because of shoddy lab technique, as has often been claimed. Scientific opposition to Reich’s experiments, Strick contends, grew out of resistance to his unorthodox sexual theories and his Marxist political leanings.
...MoreReview Håvard Friis Nilsen (2015) Review of "Wilhelm Reich, Biologist". Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (pp. 89-93).
Review Philip W. Bennett (2016) Review of "Wilhelm Reich, Biologist". Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (pp. 79-82).
Review Jennifer van der Grinten (2016) Review of "Wilhelm Reich, Biologist". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences (pp. 409-411).
Review Janet Browne (2017) Review of "Wilhelm Reich, Biologist". Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 993-995).
Review Kirsten Leng (2016) Review of "Wilhelm Reich, Biologist". Bulletin of the History of Medicine (pp. 563-565).
Review Andreas Mayer (2016) Review of "Wilhelm Reich, Biologist". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 873-874).
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