findings, which in turn sharpened his conceptual lens.
Reich also examined the sputum, excreta, and vaginal secretion of patients. His
description both of what he saw and why others had not seen these relatively simple obser-
vations in the past is worth quoting in some depth:
Let us examine the sputum of a patient with lung cancer at magnifications
above 2000x.... We find a wealth of very small lancet-shaped bodies which we did
not see below 2ooox. They have the same shape and motility as the T-bacilli which
we can cultivate from degenerating tissue or blood, or from putrescent protein.
Since T-bacilli are the result of tissue degeneration and putrid disintegra-
tion, the conclusion is inevitable that a process of disintegration and putrefaction
is taking place in the lung tissue....
In healthy living tissue and in healthy blood, examined at 2000x, we find
exclusively such cells as are described in the literature as the normal constituents of
the organism. Now let us examine blood, excreta, and tissues of a cancer patient
with carcinoma of the lung. We find formed cells and unformed shapes such as we
never see in healthy experimental animals or healthy humans. In particular, we find
striatedor vesicularstructures with a strong blue glimmerwhich look neither like cells
nor like bacteria....
In no comprehensive work on cancer is there as much as a mention of the
existence, let alone the form or variety ofliving, mobile cancer cells in living tissues
or in excretions. It is almost inconceivable that several generations of cancer
researchers can have so grievously erred^7.On various occasions Reich would offer diverse explanations of why cancer cells in
blood and excreta were overlooked. Traditional cancer researchers did not work with
unstained specimens; they concerned themselves with substances and structures, but avoid-
ed the primitive movements and energetic processes of the living. Indeed, the concern with
structure over movement also barred the use of higher-power magnification in cancer
research, since at such magnification some details of structure are lost although finer move-
ments can be observed.In addition, the high degree of specialization in modern science
inhibited connections between different realms. Protozoa in grass were one thing, cancer
cells in the human organism quite another;neuroses were one thing, cancer quite another.
Significantly, if orgonomic and traditional cancer research proceeded under quite
different assumptions and often used very different methods, some concordance in cancer
findings has emerged since the early 19405. Over the past two decades classical research has
been studying minute bodies called mycoplasmas, which have a number of properties in
common with Reich’s T-bacilli. Whether T-bacilli are identical with the mycoplasmas has not
been established. But very similar forms, first obtained directly from cancer tumors in 1964,
have been found to have a close association with cancer^8.
Reich’s ability to diagnose cancer by examination of cells in the body secretions
278 Myron SharafFury On Earth