that the physical principle of his invention has been the subject of a patent (18). How strange that none of the journalistic commentators, from Zuckerman down the line, have thought it worthwhile even to mention the existence of this document. When drawing it to the attention of several members of the party visiting Floirac, I found astonishment at its existence followed by doubts as to whether, since they had not read it, it could contain any information of value. I had no opportunity to ask Priore about it, but an associate who did so met with a similar response:  it won't help very much, he said.  Nevertheless the apparatus described is presumably that used by Rivière, in whose paper it is mentioned, and the amount of detail given is such that, unless indeed it is fraudulent, a reasonable guess as to the nature of the emerging radiation ought to be possible for people competent in the field.

          With this in mind I planned to include only a summary in this report, but have now decided upon a full translation (Appendix), with out which the odd flavor of the document would be lost.  A seemingly reasonable description of components and layout is coupled with a quaint—some might say superstitious—intrusion of pseudo biology and mention of electrophysiological pioneers whose identity can only be guessed through a haze of misspellings. There is, for instance, the choice of modulation frequency of the magnetic field to match the rhythm of the patient's heartbeat. There is, too, the comment that the best results are obtained when the cathode generating a stream of positive ions is made of molybdenum, the metal whose valency is closest to the mean valency of the chemical molecules constituting living tissues.

          I leave the reader to form his own impression of the invention described in the patent, save to mention that the active radiation emerges from a tube containing a rotating deflector upon which impinge, from several different sources, a stream of positive ions accelerated in a cyclotron, a beam of centimeter waves generated by a magnetron, and a magnetic field.  Any or all of these may be chopped or modulated according to various patterns.

          The machine was working during the visit to Floirac.  One could see the exit of the tube beneath which the biological targets are placed. There was a certain amount of rumbling and crackling, and the pinkish luminescent plasma appeared to be turbulent.  I asked about the speed of rotation but was told by one of Priore's assistants that the information is strictly confidential.   I would guess it to be well under 100 rpm.
       
THE EMERGENT FIELD

          After several misleading statements about the nature of the bio logically active field generated by Priore's machine (mentioned in ref 1), a short paper in the Comptes rendus described the results of experiments in which two physicists of established reputation had been allowed to cooperate with Priore, Pautrizel, and their associates. Berteaud and Bottreau (19) were able to analyze the radiation in some detail, up to x- and gamma-ray frequencies.  Their report is confined to