A BIOLOGICALLY ACTIVE COMBINATION OF MODULATED MAGNETIC AND MICROWAVE FIELDS:     THE PRIORE MACHINE

INTRODUCTION

              A very complicated generator invented by Antoine Priore (or Priore}, a former radar operator without academic qualification, has been said to produce radiation which causes certain implanted animal tumors to regress and cures trypanosomiasis in certain laboratory animals. There are several remarkable things about the papers describing these biological effects, the most remarkable being the contrast between the careful detail in which the biological data themselves are presented and the absence of anything but the most vague, and often contradictory, information about the generator.  I have given examples of these disparities elsewhere (1)
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               A first consequence of the publication of these communications in the Comptes rendus de l 'Académie des Sciences (Paris) was a violent polarization of opinion within the Academy and in other French scientific circles. There were some who wished to ignore or deny any phenomenon, however completely attested, brought about by inadequately specified means; they would have opposed presentation of the reports to the Academy and would probably have succeeded in suppressing them but for the determined sponsorship of the distinguished secrétaire- perpétuel, Prof. Robert Courrier. Others felt t that the importance of the results, if they could be confirmed, made further investigation imperative: if possible, with disclosure of the inventor's "secret"; if not, then without it.

               A second result was the journalistic exploitation of a situation brimming over with human interest. Commentators (2} (3) (4) (5) ranged from a writer in Esquire who has since followed another path to notoriety (3) to Lord (Solly) Zuckerman writing in popular vein (4). None of them resisted the regrettable impulse to step up the popular appeal by introducing scientifically irrelevant biographical details about Priore in order to demonstrate his worthiness for political patronage, which indeed he has received in abundance. Aside from this, they maintained a nice balance between sympathy for the victim of prejudice and healthy scepticism toward his work.  Zuckerman, in a lecture given at the Lovelace Foundation in Albuquerque (5), gives Priore an honorable place in his catalogue of those whose innovative achievements remained unrecognized because of conservative prejudice and ignorance, from Babbage to Peyton Rous, though not without leaving himself a loophole should the initial promise not be kept. The main point, he insists, is that people who believe in what they are doing should refuse to be discouraged in an atmosphere of incomprehension and hostility.

                The present report is the outcome of a visit to Priore's establishment sponsored by the organization ADERA for those attending a course of instruction in microwave exposure hazards (6).  I shall write very briefly about the alleged biological effects, then about the Priore