Microscopy and the search for the soul

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Jan, 2004  by Gitte S. Jensen

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The search for the essence of living beings has found an obscure outlet in microscopy. This search for the invisible, the driving force, the soul or nature behind living things, included the 1860s heated debate between Louis Pasteur and Antoine Bechamp, with Bechamp's claim that a "microzyma"--a microscopic particle--was the basic unit of life. (1) The fascination with microscopy led some early researchers to ignore that microscopy does not reveal everything. The focus for biologists in the 1600-1800s was on the whole cell. The basic unit of DNA was undiscovered, and bacterial life was not understood to the extent it is at present. The smallest particle visible under microscopy is not necessarily the most basic unit for life, nor is it necessarily responsible for the transmission of diseases. However, its behavior on the microscope slide tells stories.

It is time to dispel myths and unscientific notions about unproven qualities of particles as observed by microscopy. It is also high time to differentiate proven facts from unproven opinions. Simple light microscopy cannot reveal the chemical composition or origin of particles, whether or not a darkfield condenser and/or a special light source is used. Today's scientific world offers a multitude of opportunities and tools to perform specific staining and analysis that when used properly, can reveal different aspects of the identity of microscopic particles, for example using fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, or molecular methods [For examples of images visit the gallery at www.molecularprobes.com; for the technically interested: see booklist]. Today, we can sit back and look at Bechamp's theories with a tolerant smile, or we can choose to admire his ability to speculate beyond what he could prove. If Bechamp, Enderlein, and other historic figures were alive and well today, they could use these tools and expand their theories to embrace modern discoveries. Instead, the vocabulary that these researchers developed 60-140 years ago remains intact. It is vigorously protected and defended with almost religious intensity by groups who continue to consider this dated research "the truth." Thus, they often feel there is nothing new to add, and continue to ignore scientific advances made since then. Patients are caught in the middle.

Today, even the most conservative mainstream biologist must admit that Pasteur's rigid view of microbial species, and Koch's postulates regarding "One Bug--One Disease" are much too simplified. Bechamp viewed disease as developing within the body. He believed that microbes developed from diseased cells or tissue breakdown, or invaded diseased tissue after the disease process had taken hold. Today we agree that the overall body biochemistry plays a role in the development of disease, including the susceptibility to microbial invaders. According to Pasteur, disease comes about when bacteria, viruses, or other microorganisms foreign to the body invade and attack it. His view has dominated medical science and its philosophy, but a shift has occurred as mainstream microbiology is challenging this simplistic view. During the many decades while Pasteur and Koch were in the limelight, many frustrated researchers continued to explore alternatives to these simplifications, and pursued the idea of a basic life unit. Each researcher was tempted to give the unit a new name. Unfortunately, instead of integrating new discoveries as they evolved, alternative biology and mainstream medicine diverged to become polarized disciplines. Mainstream science has dug its way through the principles of cell biology, deciphered the language of biochemistry, and decoded the genetic elements. Views on cell biology and microbiology that do not incorporate mainstream scientific language will remain isolated and unintegrated biological concepts.

Research into alternative biological views has--due to its very nature--been pushed out of mainstream medical research. Several schools of thought have emerged, based in alternative biological concepts (2), (3) (see examples in Table 1). As mainstream scientists adapted to a soulless process of reductionistic dissection, the alternative biologists continue to hunt for the mystery with inappropriate tools, in search for dimensions they believe have been lost in mainstream science.

My own fascination with microscopes started as a childhood obsession with little or no external support, and outright parental resistance. Maybe due to this resistance, I have spent my entire professional life accumulating ever-larger microscopes. I was introduced early in my university years to alternative concepts in biology, including bio-energetic concepts. As I went through my academic training these aspects remained in the background, but resurfaced with my move to McGill University. That move brought me close to several historic observations including the concepts of changes in blood microscopy in health and disease (Gruner, (4) Rife, (5) Gye (6) ), intracellular cell-wall deficient microbial life forms (Mattman, (7) Tedeshi, (8) Domingue (9) ), as well as unconventional schools of biology, including the notion of a single "cancerbug" (Livingston-Wheeler, Alexander-Jackson, and Dillon (10) ), and microscopic bio-energy carrying particles (Reich, (3) Grad, (11) Naessens (unpublished observations)). As I was building my own research laboratory with top-of-the-line medical research equipment for ongoing cancer-related projects, I had the opportunity to use a microscope equipped with video, phase contrast, and dark field. For years, my team spent much time evaluating living blood on this microscope and correlating the findings using other techniques available in our hematological cancer laboratory. We performed innumerable tests, including cultures, exhaustive purification of separate fragments of the human blood, and staining with DNA markers. We used markers for human red and white blood cells to track breakdown products, and combined this staining with the DNA marker to evaluate microbial presence in human blood cell breakdown products. Finally, I worked with Dr.Ali Khamessan in characterizing bacteria inside red blood cells from patients with chronic illnesses, using molecular genetic technology. (12-14)