tage point. In a 1971 review of studies of sexual arousal, Marvin Zuckerman notes that
Reich was the first to study skin potential changes during sexual excitement^13. It was not
until 1968 that others made electrical measurements of erogenous areas. The studies cited
by Zuckerman measured primarily skin resistance, with no distinction between positive and
negative charge. More basically, no other researcher has ever approached electrodermal
functions as Reich did—as aspects of a unitary pleasure functionin the body.
I could find but one detailed criticism of Reich’s bio-electrical research by another
scientist, and for this we must return to Reich’s stay in Norway. The critique was by Wilhelm
Hoffmann, a man well trained in physiology at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin. His
critique was reported in newspaper articles about the controversy over Reich’s bion research
(to be described in the next chapter). Sometime in 1935, Hoffmann collaborated with Reich.
He was especially interested in testing Reich’s hypothesis that withdrawn schizophrenics
would show a lower skin potential than normal persons. He found that the patients’ skin
potentials were not in fact lower. Nor did Hoffmann find any differences in skin potential
between erogenous and nonerogenous zones of the patients^14.
Reich in turn criticized Hoffmann’s procedures, Hoffmann, he said, had used elec-
trodes attached to glass cups that were then fastened over the subjects’ nipples with adhe-
sive tape. “From a mechanical viewpoint,” Reich commented, “everything was perfect.
Hoffmann only overlooked one point and that was the crucial one. A pleasure reaction does-
n’t occur if one attaches glass with adhesive tape to a living organ.”^15
The controversy between Reich and Hoffmann neatly illustrates a problem inher-
ent in Reich’s research and others’ response to it. Theoretically there was merit on both sides,
paralleling the differences between Reich’s and current traditional skin research. Hoffmann
argued that Reich’s technique did not exclude spurious results, and he altered the technique
in a way that matches modern practice. Reich argued that Hoffmann had taken insufficient
care not to interfere with the subjects’ experience of pleasure, a criticism that would apply
equally well to virtually all modern research. And the difficulty was exacerbated by the events
that followed, which is also typical of Reich’s career. After their initial friendly collaboration,
Hoffmann became extremely embittered toward Reich and denounced him as totally
unequipped for laboratory work in electrophysiology. He went so far as to suggest that Reich
be expelled from Norway as an undesirable immigrant. Reich, in turn, dismissed all of
Hoffmann’s criticisms as stemming from his irrationally hostile or “mechanistic” attitude.
Given the furor that surrounded Masters and Johnson’s work some twenty-five
years later, one would have expected considerable criticism of Reich for undertaking labo-
ratory studies of sexuality at all, whether well or badly. There was some criticism along these
lines, but its severity was diminished for several reasons. First, by the time Reich published
his findings in 1937,they were soon overshadowed by the storm of controversy surround-
ing his work on the bions,to be discussed next. Second, during the first years of his
Norwegian residence, Reich successfully kept a low profile. He had many colleagues and stu-
dents,but he made no effort, as he had done earlier, to disseminate his work widely among
the public.His articles appeared in German in his own journal, which had a small circula-
204 Myron SharafFury On Earth