Wilhelm Reich : biologist /

Wilhelm Reich : biologist /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Strick, James Edgar, 1956- author.
Imprint:	Cambridge, Massachusetts ; London, England : Harvard University Press, 2015. ©2015
Description:	1 online resource (476 pages) : illustrations, photographs
Language:	English
Subject:	Reich, Wilhelm, -- 1897-1957. Reich, Wilhelm, -- 1897-1957 Reich, Wilhelm, -- 1897-1957. Psychoanalysts. Biology -- Research. Origin of Life. Research -- history. History, 20th Century. Biology -- Research. Psychoanalysts.
Format:	E-Resource Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/12016188

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	0674286863 9780674286863 067428688X 9780674286887 9780674736092 0674736095
Digital file characteristics:	text file PDF
Notes:	Includes index. Includes bibliographical references and index. In English. Print version record.
Summary:	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.
Other form:	Print version: Strick, James Edgar, 1956- Wilhelm Reich, biologist. Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2015 9780674736092
Standard no.:	40024773835 10.4159/9780674286863

Table of Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Reich's Background, Origins of His Research Program, and Relevant Context
2. Reich's Move toward Laboratory Science
3. Reich and du Teil: Control Experiments Begin
4. An Independent Scientist: The Basic Theoretical and Methodological Features of Sex-Economic Research
5. Reich's Theory of Cancer
6. Opposition to the Bion Experiments
7. SAPA Bions and Reich's Departure for the United States.