electromagnetic energy. A large amount of data has been collected regarding the effects of artificial
fields upon the nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, and hematological systems and each of these areas
are treated separately. Other reports, not so easily classifiable, are reviewed in Chapter 8. Chapter 9
deals with the mechanisms of biological effects of electromagnetic energy.
The conclusion that electromagnetic energy can produce varied and nontrivial biological effects
is inescapable. Furthermore, the evidence that such interactions can occur well below the thermal level
is similarly inescapable. While this corpus of experimental data constitutes strong support for the
theory of the intrinsic bioelectric control system that we resent, it also raises new and important
environmental questions. Man's power and communications systems utilize extensive portions of the
electromagnetic spectrum not previously present in the environment. The effect of this on the public
health is discussed in chapter 10.
Knowledge of how living things work from the bioelectric viewpoint is destined to lead to
clinical advances. Some present applications of this knowledge are discussed in chapter 11.
PART ONE: Historical Developments
Chapter 1: The Origins of Electrobiology
The study of the interaction between electromagnetic energy and living things involves aspects
of both physical and biological science that are less than perfectly understood. Electromagnetic energy,
one of the four basic forces of the universe, is neither quite particulate nor quite wave-like in nature but
displays properties of both simultaneously. It is capable of propagating through space at 186,000 miles
per second and effectuating an action at vast distances. Today we generate, transmit, receive, convert
and use this energy in thousands of ways, yet we still lack full understanding of its basic properties. In
the life sciences we have classified, determined the structure, and catalogued the functions of
practically all living organisms, yet we have not the slightest idea of how these classifications,
structures, and functions come together to produce that unique entity we call a living organism.
Practically from the time of its discovery, electromagnetic energy was identified by the vitalists
as being the "life force," and consequently it has occupied a central position in the conflict between
these two opposing doctrines for the past three centuries. While the modern view of the role of
electromagnetic energy in life processes is not that of the mysterious force of the vitalists, it has
nevertheless inherited the emotional and dogmatic aspects of the earlier conflict. To best understand
modern electrobiology it is necessary to understand its antecedents in both physics and biology and '
the constant interplay between these two branches of science over the past 300 years.
Every science is more than a collection of facts; it is also a philosophy within which the facts
are organized into a unified conceptual framework which attempts to relate them all into a coherent
concept of reality. Since biology is the study of living things, it is simultaneously the study of
ourselves, making it the most intensely personal of the sciences and the one whose philosophy is the
most subject to emotionalism and dogma. Biophilosophy has been the battle-ground for the two most
antagonistic and long-lived scientific philosophies-mechanism and vitalism. Mechanism holds that life
is basically no different from non-life, both being subject to the same physical and chemical laws, with
ELECTROMAGNETISM & LIFE - 7