Templeton’s case clearly impressed Reich with the advantages of home usage:The patients who came to the laboratory for their orgone treatment were,
every day, on their way “to the doctor.” Our friend was his own doctor. He could
use the accumulator whenever he pleased. When he developed pain, he need not
wait for the appointed hour with the physician, he could avail himself of the
orgone immediately.... He had the leisure to become acquainted with the orgone,
to make friends with it, as it were. ... He was not just the passive object of the treat-
ment but he was active. He learned to think about the energy which so greatly
helped him and to do something with it.^27It is revealing to see this side of Reich’s personality. With the accumulator, he was
always prepared to acknowledge his ignorance and to encourage the patient to find out for
himself or herself what was best: the amount of time for each sitting, the frequency of sit-
tings, and the like. Once when a patient asked him how long to use the accumulator, he
replied: “We don’t know. We’re idiots about this energy. We know we have it but all the details
remain to be discovered.Youfind out what’s best for you.“ And he replied in a similar fash-
ion to a physician who inquired whether a twenty-fold accumulator should be used in a par-
ticular case: “We don’t know the simplest things—whether to go fast or slow. We have to
find out.”^28
Whereas Reich’s physical findings concerning the accumulator had met largely with
indifference from authoritative sources, his cancer research touched a raw nerve of mind-
less opposition. In 1949, Austin Smythe, then secretary of the Council on Pharmacy and
Chemistry, published a scathing attack on the orgone accumulator in the Journal of the
American Medical Association.His concluding paragraph read: “Inquiries received concerning
the ‘institute’publishing this nonsense indicate that the ‘theory’is promoted as a method of
curing cancer.There is, of course, no evidence to indicate that this is anything more than
another fraud that has been foisted on the public and medical profession.”^29
Although Reich’s main medical efforts with the accumulator were directed toward
cancer treatment, he also reported that accumulator treatment could dramatically reduce the
incidence ofcolds and was extremely useful in promoting the healing of wounds and burns.
Physicians working with Reich in the 19405 and early 19508 used the accumulator
to treat a variety of illnesses: angina, heart disease, hypertensive states, pulmonary tubercu-
losis, and ichthyosis (a rare disease involving scaly, itching skin)^30. Their case histories sug-
gest positive results from accumulator treatment, but the number of cases seen was too few
to permit any conclusive judgment.
In the late 19505,Dr. Bernard Grad, a biologist at McGill University who had
worked with Reich, conducted research on the accumulator treatment of leukemic mice.
Treated mice lived no longer than untreated ones but autopsies disclosed that a significant-
ly smaller number died of leukemia^31 .In 1975,Richard Blasband reported that accumula-
288 Myron SharafFury On Earth