Alexander Gurwitsch
Encyclopedia
Alexander Gavrilovich Gurwitsch (also Gurvich, Gurvitch) was a Russian
and Soviet biologist and medical scientist who originated the morphogenetic field
theory and discovered the biophoton
.
he began to specialise in embryology
, publishing his first paper, on the biochemistry of gastrulation
, in 1895. He graduated from Munich University in 1897, having studied under A.A. Boehm.
laboratories of the universities of Strasbourg and Bern until 1907. At this time he met his future wife and life-long collaborator, the Russian-born medical trainee Lydia Felicine. His continuing interest, with the help of his relative Leonid Mandelstam, in the advances in physics at that time was to help in the formulation of his morphogenetic field theory, which Gurwitsch himself viewed throughout his life as no more than a suggestive hypothesis.
Serving in 1904 with the Russian army in the field he had much time to think, and he reasoned with himself that even a full understanding of every developmental process might not provide, or even necessarily lead to, a sense of understanding of ontogeny
as a whole: a holistic
, "top-down" model was needed to explain the ordered sequence of such individual processes. This conviction led him to adopt field theory as an embryological paradigm. His ideas had much in common with his contemporary Driesch and the two developed a mutual professional admiration.
During the next decade Gurwitsch contributed a series of landmark papers arguing that the orientation and division of cells was random at local level but was rendered coherent by an overall field which obeyed the regular inverse square law - an enterprise that required extensive statistical analysis. In 1907 he published his general treatise Atlas and Outline of Embryology of Vertebrates and of Man.
at Taurida University, the chief seat of learning of the Crimea
n Peninsula, where he spent seven happy years. Here in 1923 he first observed biophoton
s or ultra-weak biological photon emissions; weak electromagnetic waves which were detected in the ultra-violet range of the spectrum.
Gurwitsch named the phenomenon mitogenetic radiation since he believed that this light radiation allowed the morphogenetic field to control embryonic development. His published observations, which related that cell-proliferation of an onion was accelerated by directing these rays down a tube, brought him great attention. Some five hundred attempts at replication, however, produced overwhelmingly negative results, so that the idea was neglected for decades until it commanded some renewed interest in the later 20th century. However the furore, which may have sparked Wilhelm Reich
's similar Orgone
experiments, brought Gurwitsch an international reputation that led to several European lecture-tours. His work influenced that of Paul Alfred Weiss
in particular.
Gurwitsch was Professor of Histology and Embryology at Moscow University from 1924 to 1929 but fell foul of the communist party and was forced to relinquish the chair. He then directed a laboratory at the Institute of Experimental Medicine in Leningrad from 1930 until 1945, though he was forced to evacuate during World War 2. In 1941 he was awarded a Stalin Prize for his mitogenetic radiation work since it had apparently led to a cheap and simple way of diagnosing cancer. He was director of the Institute of Experimental Biology in Leningrad from 1945 to 1948. He sought to redefine his "heretical" concept of the morphogenetic field in general essays, pointing to molecular interactions unexplained by chemistry.
Gurwitsch retired in 1948 after Trofim Lysenko
came to power but continued working at home. Sadly his wife Lydia died in 1951. In 1953 Irving Langmuir
dubbed Gurwitsch's ideas pathological science
. However his daughter, Anna, continued his work and, shortly after his death, contributed papers that supported some aspects of her father's work on "mitogenetic" rays.
confined such ideas to the background of biology. Gurwitsch had been ahead of his time in his interest in the emergent
properties of the embryo but more modern self-organization
theories (see, for example, Ilya Prigogine
) and treatments of non-equilibrium thermodynamics
in living systems would show the extent to which the vectors he described can be generated without the assumption of an overall field, so that the search for a physical field was abandoned in favour of more neutral concepts like the paradigm of Systems Biology
. The early interest in physics which inspired Gurwitsch in the end tended to render his ideas untenable. The "mitogenetic ray" was one of the scientific topics qualified by Irving Langmuir
as pathological science
.
However, the tenacity of Anna Gurwitsch, together with the development of the photon counter multiplier, resulted in the confirmation of the phenomenon of biophotons in 1962. The observation was duplicated in a western laboratory by Quickenden and Que Hee in 1974. In the same year Dr. V.P.Kazmacheyev announced that his research team in Novosibirsk had detected intercellular communication by means of these rays. Fritz-Albert Popp
claims they exhibit coherent patterns. These studies have drawn only fringe interest.
There has been a recent revival in field theories of life, albeit again at the fringes of science, particularly among those who seek to include an account of developmental psychobiology
. The influence of Gurvitch's theory is particularly evident upon the work of the plant physiologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake
.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and Soviet biologist and medical scientist who originated the morphogenetic field
Morphogenetic field
In developmental biology, a morphogenetic field is a group of cells able to respond to discrete, localized biochemical signals leading to the development of specific morphological structures or organs. The spatial and temporal extent of the embryonic fields are dynamic, and within the field is a...
theory and discovered the biophoton
Biophoton
A biophoton , synonymous with ultraweak photon emission, low-level biological chemiluminescence, ultraweak bioluminescence, dark luminescence and other similar terms, is a photon of light emitted from a biological system and detected by biological probes as part of the general weak electromagnetic...
.
Early life
Gurwitch was the son of a Jewish provincial lawyer: his family was artistic and intellectual and he decided to study medicine only after failing to gain a place studying painting. After research in the laboratory of Karl Wilhelm von KupfferKarl Wilhelm von Kupffer
Karl Wilhelm von Kupffer was a Baltic German anatomist who discovered stellate macrophage cells that bear his name....
he began to specialise in embryology
Embryology
Embryology is a science which is about the development of an embryo from the fertilization of the ovum to the fetus stage...
, publishing his first paper, on the biochemistry of gastrulation
Gastrulation
Gastrulation is a phase early in the embryonic development of most animals, during which the single-layered blastula is reorganized into a trilaminar structure known as the gastrula. These three germ layers are known as the ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm.Gastrulation takes place after cleavage...
, in 1895. He graduated from Munich University in 1897, having studied under A.A. Boehm.
Morphogenetic field theory
After graduation he worked in the histologyHistology
Histology is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals. It is performed by examining cells and tissues commonly by sectioning and staining; followed by examination under a light microscope or electron microscope...
laboratories of the universities of Strasbourg and Bern until 1907. At this time he met his future wife and life-long collaborator, the Russian-born medical trainee Lydia Felicine. His continuing interest, with the help of his relative Leonid Mandelstam, in the advances in physics at that time was to help in the formulation of his morphogenetic field theory, which Gurwitsch himself viewed throughout his life as no more than a suggestive hypothesis.
Serving in 1904 with the Russian army in the field he had much time to think, and he reasoned with himself that even a full understanding of every developmental process might not provide, or even necessarily lead to, a sense of understanding of ontogeny
Ontogeny
Ontogeny is the origin and the development of an organism – for example: from the fertilized egg to mature form. It covers in essence, the study of an organism's lifespan...
as a whole: a holistic
Holism in science
Holism in science, or Holistic science, is an approach to research that emphasizes the study of complex systems. This practice is in contrast to a purely analytic tradition which aims to gain understanding of systems by dividing them into smaller composing elements and gaining understanding of the...
, "top-down" model was needed to explain the ordered sequence of such individual processes. This conviction led him to adopt field theory as an embryological paradigm. His ideas had much in common with his contemporary Driesch and the two developed a mutual professional admiration.
During the next decade Gurwitsch contributed a series of landmark papers arguing that the orientation and division of cells was random at local level but was rendered coherent by an overall field which obeyed the regular inverse square law - an enterprise that required extensive statistical analysis. In 1907 he published his general treatise Atlas and Outline of Embryology of Vertebrates and of Man.
The Biophoton
After the 1917 revolution Gurwitsch fell upon hard times and accepted the chair of HistologyHistology
Histology is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals. It is performed by examining cells and tissues commonly by sectioning and staining; followed by examination under a light microscope or electron microscope...
at Taurida University, the chief seat of learning of the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
n Peninsula, where he spent seven happy years. Here in 1923 he first observed biophoton
Biophoton
A biophoton , synonymous with ultraweak photon emission, low-level biological chemiluminescence, ultraweak bioluminescence, dark luminescence and other similar terms, is a photon of light emitted from a biological system and detected by biological probes as part of the general weak electromagnetic...
s or ultra-weak biological photon emissions; weak electromagnetic waves which were detected in the ultra-violet range of the spectrum.
Gurwitsch named the phenomenon mitogenetic radiation since he believed that this light radiation allowed the morphogenetic field to control embryonic development. His published observations, which related that cell-proliferation of an onion was accelerated by directing these rays down a tube, brought him great attention. Some five hundred attempts at replication, however, produced overwhelmingly negative results, so that the idea was neglected for decades until it commanded some renewed interest in the later 20th century. However the furore, which may have sparked Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...
's similar Orgone
Orgone
Orgone energy is a theory originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich. Reich, originally part of Sigmund Freud's Vienna circle, extrapolated the Freudian concept of libido first as a biophysical and later as a universal life force...
experiments, brought Gurwitsch an international reputation that led to several European lecture-tours. His work influenced that of Paul Alfred Weiss
Paul Alfred Weiss
Paul Alfred Weiss was an Austrian biologist who specialised in morphogenesis, development, differentiation and neurobiology...
in particular.
Later life
Gurwitsch retired in 1948 after Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Lysenko
Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was a Soviet agronomist of Ukrainian origin, who was director of Soviet biology under Joseph Stalin. Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, and adopted them into a powerful...
came to power but continued working at home. Sadly his wife Lydia died in 1951. In 1953 Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his...
dubbed Gurwitsch's ideas pathological science
Pathological science
Pathological science is the process in science in which "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions". The term was first used by Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, during a 1953 colloquium at the Knolls Research Laboratory...
. However his daughter, Anna, continued his work and, shortly after his death, contributed papers that supported some aspects of her father's work on "mitogenetic" rays.
Legacy
Field theories of morphogenesis had a heyday in the 1920s but the success of geneticsGenetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
confined such ideas to the background of biology. Gurwitsch had been ahead of his time in his interest in the emergent
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
properties of the embryo but more modern self-organization
Self-organization
Self-organization is the process where a structure or pattern appears in a system without a central authority or external element imposing it through planning...
theories (see, for example, Ilya Prigogine
Ilya Prigogine
Ilya, Viscount Prigogine was a Russian-born naturalized Belgian physical chemist and Nobel Laureate noted for his work on dissipative structures, complex systems, and irreversibility.-Biography :...
) and treatments of non-equilibrium thermodynamics
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics
Non-equilibrium thermodynamics is a branch of thermodynamics that deals with systems that are not in thermodynamic equilibrium. Most systems found in nature are not in thermodynamic equilibrium; for they are changing or can be triggered to change over time, and are continuously and discontinuously...
in living systems would show the extent to which the vectors he described can be generated without the assumption of an overall field, so that the search for a physical field was abandoned in favour of more neutral concepts like the paradigm of Systems Biology
Systems biology
Systems biology is a term used to describe a number of trends in bioscience research, and a movement which draws on those trends. Proponents describe systems biology as a biology-based inter-disciplinary study field that focuses on complex interactions in biological systems, claiming that it uses...
. The early interest in physics which inspired Gurwitsch in the end tended to render his ideas untenable. The "mitogenetic ray" was one of the scientific topics qualified by Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir
Irving Langmuir was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his...
as pathological science
Pathological science
Pathological science is the process in science in which "people are tricked into false results ... by subjective effects, wishful thinking or threshold interactions". The term was first used by Irving Langmuir, Nobel Prize-winning chemist, during a 1953 colloquium at the Knolls Research Laboratory...
.
However, the tenacity of Anna Gurwitsch, together with the development of the photon counter multiplier, resulted in the confirmation of the phenomenon of biophotons in 1962. The observation was duplicated in a western laboratory by Quickenden and Que Hee in 1974. In the same year Dr. V.P.Kazmacheyev announced that his research team in Novosibirsk had detected intercellular communication by means of these rays. Fritz-Albert Popp
Fritz-Albert Popp
- Biography :Fritz-Albert Popp is a German researcher in biophysics, particularly in biophotonics, a branch of quantum biology dealing with the analysis of single photons emitted from living organisms...
claims they exhibit coherent patterns. These studies have drawn only fringe interest.
There has been a recent revival in field theories of life, albeit again at the fringes of science, particularly among those who seek to include an account of developmental psychobiology
Developmental psychobiology
Developmental psychobiology is an interdisciplinary field, encompassing developmental psychology, biological psychology, neuroscience and many other areas of biology. The field covers all phases of ontogeny, with particular emphasis on prenatal, perinatal and early childhood development...
. The influence of Gurvitch's theory is particularly evident upon the work of the plant physiologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake
Rupert Sheldrake
Rupert Sheldrake is an English scientist. He is known for having proposed an unorthodox account of morphogenesis and for his research into parapsychology. His books and papers stem from his theory of morphic resonance, and cover topics such as animal and plant development and behaviour, memory,...
.
See also
- Morphogenetic fieldMorphogenetic fieldIn developmental biology, a morphogenetic field is a group of cells able to respond to discrete, localized biochemical signals leading to the development of specific morphological structures or organs. The spatial and temporal extent of the embryonic fields are dynamic, and within the field is a...
- BiophotonBiophotonA biophoton , synonymous with ultraweak photon emission, low-level biological chemiluminescence, ultraweak bioluminescence, dark luminescence and other similar terms, is a photon of light emitted from a biological system and detected by biological probes as part of the general weak electromagnetic...
- Developmental biologyDevelopmental biologyDevelopmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. Modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, differentiation and "morphogenesis", which is the process that gives rise to tissues, organs and anatomy.- Related fields of study...
- Regional specificationRegional specificationIn the field of developmental biology, regional specification is the process by which different areas are identified in the development of the early embryo. The process by which the cells become specified differs between organisms.-Cell fate determination:...
- VitalismVitalismVitalism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is#a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from biochemical reactions...
- Hans Adolf Eduard DrieschHans Adolf Eduard DrieschHans Adolf Eduard Driesch was a German biologist and philosopher from Bad Kreuznach. He is most noted for his early experimental work in embryology and for his neo-vitalist philosophy of entelechy. He is also credited with performing the first cloning of an animal in the 1880s.-Early years:Driesch...
- Hans SpemannHans SpemannHans Spemann was a German embryologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1935 for his discovery of the effect now known as embryonic induction, an influence, exercised by various parts of the embryo, that directs the development of groups of cells into particular tissues...
- Paul Alfred WeissPaul Alfred WeissPaul Alfred Weiss was an Austrian biologist who specialised in morphogenesis, development, differentiation and neurobiology...
- Walter John KilnerWalter John KilnerWalter John Kilner, M.D. B.A., M.B. M.R.C.P., etc. was a medical electrician at St. Thomas Hospital, London. There, from 1879 to 1893, he was in charge of electrotherapy. He was also in private medical practice, in Ladbroke Grove, London....