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Contents Acknowledgments 7 Co-author's Note 9 Introduction: The Promise of the Art 17 Part 1 Growth and Regrowth 23 1 Hydra's Heads and Medusa's Blood 25 Failed Healing in Bone 29 A Fable Made Fact 32 2 The Embryo at the Wound 40 Mechanics of Growth 42 Control Problems 47 Nerve Connections 55 Vital Electricity 60 3 The Sign of the Miracle 68 The Tribunal 69 The Reversals 71 Part 2 The Stimulating Current 77 4 Life's Potentials 79 Unpopular Science 82 12 The Body Electric Undercurrents in Neurology 85 Conducting in a New Mode 91 Testing the Concept 94 5 The Circuit of Awareness 103 Closing the Circle 103 The Artifact Man and a Friend in Deed The Electromagnetic Brain 110 6 The Ticklish Gene 118 The Pillars of the Temple 118 The Inner Electronics of Bone 126 A Surprise in the Blood 135 Do-It-Yourself Dedifferentiation 141 The Genetic Key 144 7 Good News for Mammals 150 A First Step with a Rat Leg 152 Childhood Powers, Adult Prospects 155 Part 3 Our Hidden Healing Energy 8 The Silver Wand 163 Minus for Growth, Plus for Infection Positive Surprises169 The Fracture Market 175 9 The Organ Tree 181 Cartilage 187 Skull Bones 188 Eyes 190 Muscle 191 Abdominal Organs 192 10 The Lazarus Heart 196 The Five-Alarm Blastema 197 1 1 The Self-Mending Net 203 Peripheral Nerves206 The Spinal Cord 207 The Brain 213 12 Righting a Wrong Turn 215 A Reintegrative Approach 219 Part 4 The Essence of Life 227 13 The Missing Chapter 229 The Constellation of the Body 233 Unifying Pathways 238 106 161 163 Contents 13 14 Breathing with the Earth 243 The Attractions of Home 250 The Face of the Deep 255 Crossroads of Evolution 261 Hearing Without Ears 264 15 Maxwell's Silver Hammer 271 Subliminal Stress 276 Power Versus People 278 Fatal Locations 284 The Central Nervous System 284 The Endocrine, Metabolic, and Cardiovascular Systems 288 Growth Systems and Immune Response 292 Conflicting Standards 304 Invisible Warfare 317 Critical Connections 326 Postscript: Political Science 330 Glossary 348 Index 353 Introduction: The Promise of the Art I remember how it was before penicillin. I was a medical student at the end of World War II, before the drug became widely available for civilian use, and I watched the wards at New York's Bellevue Hospital fill to overflowing each winter. A veritable Byzantine city unto itself, Bellevue sprawled over four city blocks, its smelly, antiquated buildings jammed together at odd angles and interconnected by a rabbit warren of underground tunnels. In wartime New York, swollen with workers, sailors, soldiers, drunks, refugees, and their diseases from all over the world, it was perhaps the place to get an all-inclusive medical education. Bellevue's charter decreed that, no matter how full it was, every patient who needed hospitalization had to be admitted. As a result, beds were packed together side by side, first in the aisles, then out into the corridor. A ward was closed only when it was physically impossible to get another bed out of the elevator. Most of these patients had lobar (pneumococcal) pneumonia. It didn't take long to develop; the bacteria multiplied unchecked, spilling over from the lungs into the bloodstream, and within three to five days of the first symptom the crisis came. The fever rose to 104 or 105 degrees Fahrenheit and delirium set in. At that point we had two signs to go by: If the skin remained hot and dry, the victim would die; sweating meant the patient would pull through. Although sulfa drugs often were effective against the milder pneumonias, the outcome in severe lobar pneumonia still depended solely on the struggle between the infection and 18 The Body Electric the patient's own resistance. Confident in my new medical knowledge, I was horrified to find that we were powerless to change the course of this infection in any way. It's hard for anyone who hasn't lived through the t