Of high electric significance are the exquisitely thin, low-conducting lipoid structures which surround each of the trillions of cells which compose the body. It is a well known physical fact that an oil film has a high capacity for the accumulation of electric charges and that the thinner the film the higher its electric capacity. While the other essential constituents of the organism might play a role in an organism operated by some other form of energy, these lipoid structures are of the highest significance in an organism which is operated by electrical forces.
The animal organism as a whole is enmeshed in a network of highly specialized electric conductors—namely, the nervous system. In its physical composition, therefore, the body is not only highly adapted to electrical processes but its constituents in their inter-relations within the organism could not be of any conceivable value in a mechanism operated by any other form of energy. p. 48
The mechanism by which oxidation within the protoplasm of the cell generates the electric charges that operate the cell and the organism we postulate is due to the short wave radiation generated and emitted by oxidation within protoplasm. According to this conception this short wave radiation knocks off electrons. These moving electrons charge up the intricate network of the nervous system as well as the infinitely thin membranes that separate the various units of structure and network within the cells. p. 48-49
The nucleus of the cell is comparatively acid. The cytoplasm of the cell is comparatively alkaline. The nucleus and the cytoplasm are separated by a semi-permeable membrane.
Therefore the cell is a bipolar mechanism or an electric battery, the nucleus being the positive element, the cytoplasm the negative element. The rate of oxidation in the nucleus is greater than the rate of oxidation in the cytoplasm; and therefore as the electric tension increases in the nucleus, the electricity passes through the nuclear membrane; the electric potential in the nucleus falls and in consequence the current is interrupted. Since the potential is again immediately restored by oxidation, radiation and other chemical activity, we conceive that an interrupted current passes continually from the positive nucleus to the negative cytoplasm and in consequence a charge is accumulated on the surface membranes. As we have stated, these membranes of infinite thinness and of high dielectric capacity are peculiarly adapted to the storage and adaptive discharge of electric energy. p. 49
It was apparent that the variations in that form of radiant energy which we call heat followed closely the variations in electric conductivity, electric capacity and electric potential observed under like conditions, thus indicating the fundamental nature of these electric and radiant forces.
But it is not the long wave heat radiation but the short or ionizing wave radiation that has hitherto escaped detection as the energy that builds up protoplasm and generates the electric changes and currents that operate protoplasm. p. 78
The long wave or heat radiation affects molecules but does not affect atoms as far as the structure of the atom is concerned. To build an organic compound it is necessary to have such a powerful short wave radiation that it can affect or modify the structure of the atom by knocking off electrons or by changing their paths, thus altering the charge of the atom. When an electron is knocked from an atom, the balance of charge is shifted toward the positive side. Thus making the atom more positive and giving it a greater affinity for other atoms. In other words, short wave radiation gives chemical affinity to the atoms. Therefore to build such organic compounds as those which make up plants and animals, radiation of certain short wavelength is essential. p. 78-79
Since the interior of an animal receives no radiance directly from the sun, an animal necessarily must use the sun’s radiance that is stored in the atoms and molecules of the protoplasm of the plant. Just as non-living, for example in coal and oil, the stored radiance of the sun is present in the atoms of the carbon compounds and is released as light and heat which in turn effect mechanical activity, so in animals solar radiation is released from the atoms of the plant food and produces light and heat animal activity. Einstein’s Law of Equivalence should be cited here, viz., that energy of an atom is given out in the same quanta as those received by the atom, so it is not a figure of speech but a fact that the sun shines again in the protoplasm of animals, endowing them with the unique power of the sun.
Is radiation merely a waste product or is this radiation and essential function of protoplasm? This question is answered in part, for the nitrifying bacteria at least, by the following quotation from a report of the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and soils: 1
“There are various ways of rendering the inert nitrogen molecule chemically active. Heat and electricity are effective when properly applied, and results obtained in this bureau have indicated that ultraviolet light having very short wavelengths is an agency to this end. … Spectroscopy has recently furnished detailed knowledge of the structure of the nitrogen molecule, and it is now possible by means of ultraviolet light to alter the structure, so as to render this exceedingly inert substance chemically active.” p. 79
Since the energy that constructs and operates animal protoplasm is derived directly from plant protoplasm and since the energy that constructs and operates plant protoplasm is directly from solar radiation, lightning, terrestrial electricity, and the nitrifying bacteria, what the animal specifically obtains in his food is the radiation or quanta of energy which has been packed into the atoms of the plant protoplasm by sunlight, by lightning, by terrestrial electricity, and by the nitrifying bacteria. p. 79-80
Thus modern physics has given us a simple conception of the source of energy in animal protoplasm, since only short wave radiation can knock off electrons and hence confer chemical affinity of the high order demanded for synthesis and growth.
Short wave radiation accounts also for the origin of the electric charges and currents in protoplasm. The same short wave radiation which confers chemical affinity detaches electrons in infinite numbers, thereby charging up the innumerable membranes and nerve and electric circuits which are present everywhere in protoplasm. This is the origin of the electric charges by which protoplasm is operated. This is as simple as the operation of the photo-cell in which short wave radiance falls upon an electrode and detaches electrons, which in turn charge up the available circuits which operate robots. In protoplasm are present compounds whose electrons are detached with facility by ultraviolet, visible and short infra-red wave radiation. It would thus seem that protoplasm has the properties of a photo-electric cell. p. 80
In the animal battery as in the man-made battery, when as the result of continuous action the contra-electric current equals the primary current, then the electric circuit is inactive and dead; the electric potential within the circuit and within the cells coincidentally falls to zero—and the animal is dead. Such a death is unique in that there is no struggle, there is only a continuous loss of energy, until the animal or man stops living as inconspicuously as a battery fades to zero. Just as a battery runs down by virtue of polarization and is restored by opening the circuit, so is the case of the billions of brain cells that run down by virtue of polarization as the result of adequate stimulation of the senses, if the stimuli are reduced below the threshold of action, the nerve circuits are opened and depolarization occurs. This is sleep. p. 126
The possession by protoplasm of a mechanism that can generate and emit ionizing radiation interprets most simply that hitherto unexplained phenomenon, the ionization of oxygen, since it explains by what means oxygen is ionized, hence made chemically active. It is the short wave radiation emitted by the radiogens that ionizes oxygen. The atmospheric oxygen at the low level of energy in the alveoli of the lungs, in solution in the blood stream, in the hemoglobin, in the plasma that bathes the cells of the body, in the electrolytic solutions within the cells themselves, indeed throughout its journey from the atmosphere until it reaches the ionization radiation emitted by the radiogen—this atmospheric oxygen remains at its primary low energy level and is incapable of performing its elementary fundamental role of energizing the organism by oxidation. Ionization of this element, oxygen, is accomplished instantaneously by the radiation emitted from the molecular unit, the radiogen, just as the ionization of the oxygen in the air is accomplished instantaneously by lightning. p. 127
In between the long infra-red and ultraviolet rays comes the visible by Dr. Glasser. He has found that when sodium chloride and other crystalline salts are irradiated by radium and the x-ray, they emit ultraviolet radiation and that this emission is increased by exposure of the irradiated salt to visible light. p. 129-130
It would appear that the specific form of energy that builds and operates protoplasm is radiant and electric energy; that radiant end electric energy is released by oxidation; that radiant and electric energy fabricates growth. It follows, therefore, that excitation, depression and death can be measured in physical terms. p. 167
There is evidence that in age and senility there is a lowering of the oxidation, radiation and electric potential of the organism; therefore it would be reasonable to expect that the one agent that can control oxidation, radiation and electric potential, that is, the thyroid hormone, if administered in suitable cases would tend to ameliorate the feebleness and inertia of declining years. p. 174
As has already been stated, a cell can function only when under a certain electrical strain, and this electrical strain is constantly being regenerated by the radiant energy produced by oxidation; in other words, oxidation, radiation, and electric potential go hand in hand. Whatever interferes with oxidation interferes with radiation and its consequent electric potential. p. 189
Several types of photo-electric cells known to respond to ultraviolet light have been employed as detectors. An improved method of detection is a combination of the photo-electric cell with the principle of the Geiger-Müller counter. Rajewsky, Frank and Rodionow, Audubert, and Barth, who used this type of detector for mitogenetic radiation, claimed that various materials, including onion bulb, cancer tissue, frog sartorius muscle in contraction, the peptic digestion of fibrin, and the oxidation of FeSO4, gave an increase in the counts, indicating the emission of rays. p. 346-347
Sodium chloride crystals previously irradiated with roentgen rays have been found to release stored energy in the form of ultraviolet light in the presence of visible light. Although this radiation with an emission maximum at 2,450 A is extremely weak, it can be detected easily with the photo-electric Geiger counter. p. 348-349
Since all matter is electrical in nature and since in the final analysis all energy is radiant and electric energy, we conceived that protoplasm must be generated and operated by electric energy.
The generation of radiant and electric energy in animals is made through oxidation of the organic compounds of the plant; that is, solar radiance is released in the animal by oxidation.
Animals are adapted to oxidation, just as a combustion engine is adapted to oxidation. Much of the body of animals, the lungs and the circulatory system, is related to the fact that it is through oxidation in animals that the sun’s radiance is radiated in protoplasm; that is, oxidation causes the sun to “shine” again in protoplasm. Animals, like plants, grow by virtue of solar radiation and re-radiate solar radiation. p. 360
The intensity of the re-radiation of solar energy in animals is increased by thyroxin, by adrenalin, by nerve impulses. The sun’s radiance is dimmed at night and in the winter but the identical solar radiation in animals shines as brightly at night as in the day; as brightly in the winter as in the summer. p. 360-361
These considerations would lead our physicist to investigate the chemical and physical nature of protoplasm and he would first note that the surface films could not generate adaptively the intense energy of radiation, and would consider what would be the physical nature of a hitherto un-described molecular furnace.
Short wave radiation results from oxidation of nitrogen and carbon compounds—an oxidation at high speeds as in the detonation of explosives. It would be evident that there is in the protoplasm the constant re-radiation of the energy put into the nitrogen and carbon compounds; but the temperature of the protoplasm is at almost a cold level, though higher than the environment. p. 363
Our physicist therefore would ask himself what would become of the intense heat of combustion since it is not manifested in the organism as a whole? He would see clearly that it is the great preponderance of water which dissipates it. The physicist would then see what the fuel that energizes protoplasm is. He would see that protoplasm is water- cooled. He would see how it is made to flare up adaptively. He would consider the number and size of these generators of radiation—these radiogens. It would be clear that if the radiogens should coalesce they would either extinguish each other or would fail to be water-cooled. Therefore, the radiogens would be spaced by some form of energy analogous to that which spaces colloidal particles. The physicist, knowing that animal protoplasm contains a constant but small amount of iron—bound iron—and knowing that iron promotes oxidation, would think that while cold iron like cold oxygen, cold nitrogen, cold carbon, from the standpoint of energy is one thing, on the other hand a molecule of iron at a temperature of from 3,000 to 6,000 degrees Centigrade would be “excited” iron and a vastly different thing. Our physicist would then glimpse the fundamental role of iron; namely, in the “excited” state the molecule of iron would be the luminous sun of the radiogen—the center of the protein fire which would hold the atoms of the proteins in its “energy field” as the primary radiogen, the sun, holds in its “energy field” the planets. And so the physicist would consider that these theoretic radiogens would space themselves through the “energy fields,” thus making a uniform distribution for the genesis of energy; and also a uniform division of the water-cooled system. p. 363-364
The Phenomena of Life… A Radio-Electric Interpretation by George Crile 1936
Radiogens
Onions radiate electromagnetic waves. Eyes, fingers, blood emit rays which kill cells. As living things die, they produce “necrobiotic rays.” All this several investigators have demonstrated, and from their demonstrations drawn a theory that all living matter radiates energy (TIME, July 4, et ante). But how does this go on? Cleveland’s ingenious Surgeon George Washington Crile, who long has been studying the electronics of living things, last week offered his theory to the Central Association of Science & Mathematics Teachers meeting in Cleveland.
Every bit of protoplasm is loaded with multitudes of “hot points” or “radiogens” which produce the rays, according to him. Temperature of those points must be between 3,000° and 6,000° C. “If one could look into protoplasm with an eye capable of infinite magnification,” he elaborated, “one might expect to see the radiogens spaced like stars, as suns in infinite miniature.” The “interstellar” spaces absorb the intense heat of his radiogens, he reasons. The nucleus of his theoretic radiogen “would theoretically be a molecule of iron.” Dr. Maria Takles, a Crile associate, figures four billion radiogens in a cubic centimetre of muscle.
The great importance of radiogens in Dr. Crile’s mind is that, if they really exist, they may explain how plants add oxygen & hydrogen to carbon dioxide to make sugar, how animals add oxygen to sugar to form carbon dioxide—chemical reactions which require access of considerable energy.
