ABSTRACT
We examine in detail Wilhelm Reich's orgonomic theory of the etiology of cancer and his model of the cytological stages of cancer. The orgonomic model of cancer stands alone in linking the
persistence and intensification of social and psychosomatic factors that negatively affect emotional
expression with the onset of hypoxic conditions, local and systemic, that select for malignant phenotypes. The rarely broached main novelty of the model suggests that every manifestation of somatic
cancer is preceded by increasing RBC dysfunctionality, and that the leukocytosis characteristic of
most chronic leukemias is in fact an auto-immune reaction geared against RBC fragments and their
(self-)antigens. Even though unproven, these are provocative suggestions that could turn out to be
substantially correct. The same cannot be said for the orgonomic model's contention that the real
cancer cells are amoeboid cells that arose de novo (heterogenically) from the vesicular byproducts of
one or more dying or decaying tissue cells - or for Reich's proposed staging of cancer. In this context, the vesicle-based concept of a PA bion is found to be wanting and unable to
acquire a functional sense - as it is employed to designate such widely different biological phenomena as to become merely a catch-all. In contrast, Reich's identification and isolation of his 'T-bacilli',
despite some discrepancies, seems to largely coincide with the identification of mycoplasma. His proposed role for these T-bacilli in chronic inflammation and his experimental induction of leukemoid
disease in mice injected with T-bacilli isolates are coadunate with current views of the possible role of
mycoplasma in the co-induction of leukemia or leukemoid states.
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