Because the CNS pervades the entire body, these currents produce an organized total body field
detectable with surface electrodes. It is not unlikely that this phenomenon constitutes a system for the
transmission of very basic type data, and that it may well provide the integrative function postulated by
Libet and Gerard on experimental grounds and by von Neumann on theoretical grounds. Thus the CNS
can be viewed as a two-component system, with the DC system being the primitive, analog portion,
possibly located in the perineural cell system (glia, Schwann cells), and the action potential system of
the neurones proper being the more sophisticated but limited, digital system. This concept would seem
to provide a fruitful frame of reference for further investigation of such higher nervous functions as
memory, consciousness, and perception.
Growth Control
In 1952 Marsh and Beams reported on an interesting series of experiments on Planaria, a species
of relatively simple flatworm with a primitive nervous system and simple head-to-tail axis of
organization (29). As expected, electrical measurements had indicated a simple head-tail dipole field.
This animal had remarkable regenerative powers; it could be cut transversely into a number of
segments, all of which would regenerate a new total organism. Even more remarkable, the original
head-tail axis would be preserved in each regenerate, with that portion nearest the original head end
becoming the head of the new organism. Marsh and Beams postulated that the original head-tail
electrical vector persisted in the cut segments and that it provided the morphological information for
the regenerate. If this was so, then reversal of the electrical gradient by exposing the cut surface to an
external current source of proper orientation should produce some reversal of the head-tail gradient in
the regenerate. While performing the experiment they found that as the current levels were increased
the first response was to form a head at each end of the regenerating segment. With still further
increases in the current the expected reversal of the head-tail gradient did occur, indicating that the
electrical gradient which naturally existed in these animals was capable of transmitting morphological
information.
A few years later Humphrey and Seal attempted a scientific evaluation of the old clinical
techniques of electrical control of tumor growth (30). It had been observed many times that rapidly
growing tissues were electrically negative in polarity, with tumors being the highest in magnitude.
Many of the old clinical techniques therefore applied positive potentials and currents on the theory that
the opposite polarity should slow or stop the growth. Using rats with implanted malignant tumors,
Humphrey and Seal applied anodes of copper or zinc over the tumor masses and passed currents
averaging mamp for a period of 3 hours per day. In their most impressive series of 18 control and 18
experimental animals, the mean volume of the tumors in the controls was 7 times greater than in the
experimentals after 24 days of treatment, and all of the controls died by day 31 while 7 of the treated
animals demonstrated complete tumor regression and survived for more than a year thereafter. All of
these experiments were based on the postulated generalized total body bioelectric field and the fact that
this concept was not generally accepted by the body of science precluded any serious clinical
consideration of these findings.
The only work that applied Szent-Gyorgyi's concepts in part was that of Huggins and Yang who
showed quite conclusively that carcinogenic (cancer-producing) agents produced their effect by a
combination of their steric organization and their capacity for electron transfer (31). In their view these
agents were, because of their size and shape, able to attach to certain areas of the cell surface and then
ELECTROMAGNETISM & LIFE - 31