The Body Electric by Dr. Robert O. Becker and Gary Selden, first published in 1985, explores the human body's use of bioelectromagnetism. Dr. Becker directed Orthopedic Surgery at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse, New York, and was one of the pioneers investigating electric fields produced by living bodies.Dr. Becker's concern with the injuries of veterans led him to a series of experiments using animals with known regenerative abilities such as salamanders and the tiny hydra. Whereas several lizard species can regrow lost tails, the hydra will regenerate in a myriad of ways: slice the tentacles off one, and they will regrow; cut a hydra in half, and two complete organisms will result. As long as a section of the trunk is preserved, any number of full creatures will regrow. Becker was not the person who discovered this. In the 1740s, a Swiss scientist named Abraham Trembley, a student of the great French naturalist Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur, shocked the world with his description of the powers of regrowth of the hydra.
With this as background, Becker and Selden embark on their exploration of the notion of the elan vital, the supposed anima or spirit that makes living things so vastly different from other substances. The authors inject the notion of electricity as that sizzle of life.
Though the science of The Body Electric seems a bit stiff compared to Ashcroft's The Spark of Life, the essence of both their presentations is the same: life generates electricity ... or maybe it's electricity that generates life. Or maybe it's that life and electricity are the same. Becker goes further than Ashcroft initially, however, by proposing a scenario of the emergence of life on earth from electro-chemical properties of the early environment. Whereas Ashcroft's argument degenerates into a denial of free will, Becker's spins off into cryptic warnings about the dangers of high-voltage power lines and the effects of electromagnetic radiation on health.
Whereas the first two-thirds of Becker and Selden's book reveals in fascinating detail how living bodies are defined by their application of electrical potentials, the last part loses a large measure of its scientific credibility due to its strong flavor of conspiracy theories. Although both The Body Electric and The Spark of Life make important major contributions to our understanding of life and consciousness, in the end, they both fall victim to philosophical musings better suited to methods of knowing other than science.
This article in the 25 November 2013 issue of The New Yorker gives an exhilarating look into the possible applications of cellular electronics and their benefits. More evidence that life is, after all, electrical in nature.
