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Royal Raymond Rife (May 16, 1888 - August 5, 1971) became known for his claim of finding cancer viruses. He also clamed to have found a treatment to render inert such microbes and many others by means of his "beam ray" device, which was supposed to work by means of "devitalizing" pathogens using resonance on constituent chemicals (integral in their structural make-up) with an induced frequency[1][2] Rife also claimed that these cancer viruses were pleomorphic --microbe pleomorphism was a theory put forward in the 1850s by famous French scientist Professor Pierre Jacques Antoine Bechamp. Although these claims are not all currently supported by the mainstream scientific community, some of Rife's cancer therapy work was repeated[3] by Dr. O.C. Gruner, M.D.,[4] Archibald Cancer Research Committee of McGill University of Montreal, Dr. Milbank Johnson, M.D., and Dr. James B. Couche, M.D. San Diego. And Rife's pleomorphic germ-origin of cancer research was confirmed or supported by Dr. O.C. Gruner, M.D., Dr. E.C. Rosenow, Mayo Clinic, professor Dr. Arthor I. Kendall, Ph.D.,[5][6] Northwestern Medical School, Dr. Virginia Livingston Wheeler, M.D.[7] and Quebec, Canada, Somatid researcher-biologist Gaston Naessens.[8] Information and key parts for the construction of many of Rife's original instruments are missing or lost. After his death use of his name in connection with electric devices used in alternative medicine became common. The "beam ray" device has no medically proven effect on its users.[citation needed]
Rife was of Scottish ancestry,[9] born on May 16, 1888, in Elkhorn, Nebraska. In 1905, at the age of 17, he graduated from high school and Rife claims to have entered John Hopkins University to study medicine. After a short time, Rife claims, he diverted his field of university study to bacteriology. While still at university, he began working part time for Carl Zeiss at their New York offices.[10] Rife said that after a while he moved to Germany and worked part time at Carl Zeiss at their Heidelberg offices while attending the University of Heidelberg. Rife claims to have worked for six years with Hans Luckel, who was Carl Zeiss' optical scientist and researcher,[11][12] It is claimed that Rife learned how to grind parabolic lenses.[13]
Rife apparently developed photomicrographs for the Atlas of Parasites for the University of Heidelberg. In 1912 Rife moved to San Diego, California, married Mamie Quill, and was employed as a family chauffeur for Amelia C. (Timken) Bridges (of Bridges Carriage Co. fame), the sister of multi millionaire Henry H. Timken, of Timken Roller Bearings fame.[14]. Near the time of the outbreak of World War One in 1914 Rife was given an honorary Doctorate of Parasitology (Science) by the University of Heidelberg for his work in creating the Atlas of Parasites.[10][15] In 1915 Rife worked on machining and building a 2,700 HP motor for Henry Timken's speedboat "Kitty-Hawk Five," and Rife later piloted the boat to set a speedboat record of 87 MPH sustained over a 100 mile race. The record was only broken about 60 years later, in 1975.[16]
Rife developed an X-ray imaging system for Timken Roller Bearings production line to prevent defective steel from being used.[16] (Search for 17:12 and mention of x-ray).
Mrs. H. Timken became sick and her condition worsened. Rife investigated, and discovered bacteria growing on food in her kitchen.[14] Mrs. Timken recovered after the contamination was removed. The Bridges and Timken families then began to back Rife's scientific investigations by providing him with money and property to set up a research lab.[14]
Rife was at one time awarded a Research Fellowship in Bio-Chemistry by a nationally-known Institute for Scientific Research, the Andean Anthropological Expedition.[12]
Rife died on August 5, 1971 in Grossmont Hospital, El Cajon, CA, from a combination of valium and alcohol, at the age of 83.[14]
Rife built a number of "virus" microscopes. Rife 1 through to Rife 5 are documented to have existed.[17] At least one was cannibalized for parts to build one or more of the others. The Rife #5 has never been reported to have worked since its original owner, Dr. Gonin in England, "was unable to obtain useful results with either No 4 or No 5."[18]
In 1933[19][20] Rife built his finest microscope, the "Universal" Rife #3 microscope, a heterodyning UV microscope[21] claiming a resolution greater than any contemporary device and higher than is theoretically possible for a visible light optical microscope. The instrument included all quartz optics, multiple prisms in the S-shaped body, polarized light, oil & water immersion,[22][23] parabolic lenses,[13] simultaneous visible and patented ultraviolet light sources and four Risley prisms[24] with nano-anglular adjustment manipulators, fine focus adjustment using glycerin-filled hydraulic screw action,[25] overcoming physical limitations by heterodyning, a frequency up- and down-shifting technique, fairly new at that time, used in radio receivers and other electronics.
On November 20, 1931, forty-four doctors attended a dinner advertised as "The End To All Diseases" at the Pasadena estate of Dr. Milbank Johnson.[26] This dinner was honoring Dr. Arthur I. Kendall, professor at Northwestern Medical School, and developer of the "Kendall Medium" or "K-Medium," and Dr. Royal Rife, the developer of the "Rife microscope."
Sample (selected cancer or other) diseased human tissue was able to be ground-up, diluted with water, then either Berkefeld N or Berkefeld 000 filtered thereby removing the human cells, and then this mixture was able to grow in culture using the "K-Medium" where with prior mediums it otherwise would not. The resulting filtered culture, if injected into a healthy test subject would develop disease. The samples of the filtered mixture were viewable using any of the several working Rife "Virus" Microscopes where moving microorganisms were supposedly seen, still-photographed and motion pictured. A write-up in a medical journal described the procedure and general characteristics of a Rife 'virus' microscope.[6]
On November 20, 1931, The Rife Research Laboratory, San Diego, California, the Laboratory of Research Bacteriology at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, Illinois and the Pathological Laboratory of the Pasadena Hospital in Pasadena, California presented a paper[5] at a meeting of the Bacteriological Section of the Los Angeles Clinical and Pathological Society, entitled: "Observations on Bacillus Typhosus in its Filterable State - A Preliminary Communication."[6] This characterized the three distinct pleomorphic microbial forms causing the disease. This observational data was contested in 1932 by Dr. Thomas Rivers[27] virologist, bacteriologist, Director of the Rockefeller Institute--a primary source of funding for medical research--who in 1926 had authoritatively stated his theory that a virus needed a living tissue for reproduction, and Harvard microbiologist Dr. Hans Zinsser.[27]
In 1932, the Mayo Clinic performed a series of tests on a Rife "virus" microscope.[28] Afterwards, Dr. Edward Rosenow Sr., Mayo Clinic, published a two-part paper [29] discussing the "amazing" capabilities of the Rife microscope as compared side by side with a standard microscope.
Rife claimed to have used his various "virus" microscopes to directly observe, in vivo in various media and living tissues, the full life cycles of microbes too small for regular visible light microscopes. Nano-angular adjustments of the Risley prisms selected visible light of a single wavelength to be focused on the specimen. When this was heterodyned with the patented monochromatic UV cool beam light source, the microorganisms he was examining could purportedly be seen using the human eye and photographic equipment. The effect was explained as eliciting resonance with a unique "spectroscopic signature frequency" of some of the constituent chemical substances of the microbe, causing those substances to become easily visible without killing the microbe.
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Rife came to believe that he could find a Mortal Oscillatory Rate[30] (M.O.R.) for various pathogenic organisms, and directed his research accordingly, culturing and testing various pathogens with his machine.[31] The MOR is one at which the resonance becomes so extreme as to lethally damage (devitalize) and or completely halt the microorganism's reproduction. The microorganism itself does not vibrate, only certain constituent chemicals in its structure did so. A PHYSICIST'S VIEW - Gary Wade PhD. indicates that usually viruses are coated with a protein and that the protein structure under resonance conditions will disintegrate:
The protein is disrupted, and not the entire microbe. Resonance effects on chemical bonds and nuclei are also seen in spectroscopy chemical analysis using pulsed Earth's field NMR, where the bonds and nuclei are what is induced to vibrate via magnetic impulse having harmonic frequencies up to the several MHz range.
Similar resonance destruction can be observed when a human singer is able to shatter fine crystal wine glasses by loudly sustaining a note or frequency which causes the glass to resonate and build up energy levels until it shatters.[32] The destruction happens when absorbed energy builds faster than it can be radiated, and the resonating part of the structure is no longer able to maintain integrity. The entire wine glass does not shatter, only the weak part that was vibrating the most does so.
Rife documented, in the course of this work, the precise frequencies[33] which destroyed specific organisms. Working with Dr. Kendall, Rife was able to show that many, if not all, contagious bacterial diseases could be cured using this radiation treatment. These frequencies were typically in the 10-100 MHz range (HF to mid-VHF).[34] A document circulating the internet entitled "Rife Table by frequency 06-30-2001.doc" consists of 46 pages of specific frequencies with pathogen(s) affected.
Rife was a stickler for precision. He searched and searched for the best destructive wavelength or frequency with which a given culture of pathogens would explode instantly. Although some frequencies killed the pathogens gradually, Rife wanted to minimize the time and power required for the treatments.[16] (Search for 'fresh culture' and mention of harmonics.) To insure that he had happened upon the correct frequency, Rife repeated the experiment 10 to 12 times for verification.[16] (search for 'Then I go back and zero the damn thing')
Rife knew that had he unscientifically conducted human trials himself on diagnosed sick patients that he would be charged by authorities for practicing medicine without a license, and using unapproved equipment for medical purposes. Rife mentions in some reel-to-real audio recordings made by an interviewer in the a few years prior to his death that Rife himself insisted that eminent, irrefutable medical doctors and medical scientists should be involved and conduct such testing.
A 1986 newspaper article[27] by Barry Lynes, author of "The Cancer Cure That Worked!," a book about Rife, claims that in 1934, the University of Southern California appointed a special medical research committee to research hopeless cancer case patients from Pasadena County Hospital. The clinic was set up by Dr. Millbank Johnson M.D.
Members of the Special Medical Research Committee of the University of Southern California included: Dr. Milbank Johnson, M.D., committee chairman, Dr. Rufus B. van Klein-Schmidt, president of U.S.C., Dr. Charles Fischer, M.D., Children's Hospital New York, Dr. Hayland Morrison, M.D., chief surgeon Santa Fe Railway, Dr. George Dock, M.D., Pasadena, Dr. Karl F. Meyer, G.W. Hooper Foundation San Francisco (U.C. Berkeley), Dr. Alvin G. Ford, M.D., president American Association of Pathologists Pasadena California.[35]
Other doctors involved in researching the results were: Dr. Ray Lounsberry, M.D., Dr. James B. Couche, M.D., Dr. E.F.F. Copp, M.D., Dr. Thomas Burger, M.D., all of the San Diego area. Dr. Arthur Isaac Kendall, Ph.D., of Northwestern University faculty, Dr. Joseph Heitger, M.D., of Louisville, Kentucky, Dr. O.C. Gruner, M.D., Archibald Cancer Research Committee of McGill University of Montreal, Dr. E.C. Rosenow, Mayo Clinic.
Johnson rented or got permission to use the home of the late Ellen Scripps,[36][37] near the Annex of the Scripps Institute, on the Ranch estate in La Jolla, California. Johnson hired no one in the way of nurses or staff and conducted all the human trial clinical treatments himself.[38]
Robert Page, an acquaintance of Rife's, recollects:[13]
16 patients from Paradise Valley Sanitarium were selected to undergo clinical treatments using the original Rife frequency equipment. Some sources indicate all 16 patients in the trial were suffering from terminal stages of cancer, while others indicate tuberculosis patients were mixed in too.[38] Dr. Rife paid occasional visits. So did the M.Ds on the medical research committee. The clinic was supposed to run from mid-June until August/September for about 70 days. The committee concluded that 14 of the patients had been completely cured; that the treatment was then adjusted for the two remaining patients over the next four weeks and that the total recovery rate using Rife's technology was 100%. In a documentary film "The Royal Rife Story -- Historical Documentary", produced by G-2 Enterprises, Price, Utah (circa 2004), about 53 minutes 30 seconds into the documentary there is a voice recording supposedly of Dr. James B. Couch who talks about one of the patients of the 1934 clinic. In one severe case, a man with cancer was described as going from death's doorstep, frail and thin, to "completely" recovered, in the course of two months of treatments.
After Dr. Johnson conducted tests using Rife's machine to test growth of Typhoid in medium. Test results demonstrated no motility of typhoid rods which were exposed to Rife's machine.[39][40] Unfortunately, in spite of these reported successes, no paper submitted to a peer-reviewed medical journal, nor any details of the diagnoses of the patients before or after treatment in the cancer trials are currently available.
Years after the "successful" Dr. Milbank Johnson 1934 clinical trials, Fishbein learned of Rife's activities. Fishbein knew a man who was dying of cancer. One day he met the man by chance. The man was completely well, a successfully treated patient who had returned back from California to Chicago. Fishbein wined and dined[41] (Search for 'Fishbein wined and dined') this person to discover how he could have been cured. Fishbein then learned about Rife from this reluctant man. Before this time, the AMA did not persecute Rife or the M.Ds working in association with him.
According to audio recordings made in the 1950s of the people involved, in 1934 the AMA sent a letter trying to purchase the patent for the Beam Ray, and that Dr. Johnson had kept a copy of the letter on file.[16](Search for 09:00 and mention of AMA).
In 1939 to break up the Beam Ray Corporation, the AMA provided money [42] (search for $10,000) to one of its disgruntled partners, Philip Hoyland, to bring a law suit against them.[43] Hoyland's intent was to secure a position on the board of directors for Fishbein's AMA agent.[42][43] Rife wins the court case but begins to abuse alcohol. The presiding Judge Kelly offers to fight the company who represented Hoyland indirectly, the AMA, but Rife has no more money and is now a drunk.[16] (Search for 'Judge Kelley'). During the time of the trial the AMA threatens all MDs[42] (Search for 'get rid') using the Beam Ray equipment with revoking their membership in the AMA, thereby losing their licenses to practice medicine. All MDs comply, surrendering their equipment except Dr. Milbank Johnson, and Dr. James Couche, MD. Rife cannot afford to keep the Beam Ray Corporation going, and there are no MD customers wanting to buy the equipment. Rife shuts the company down, and sells off all of the assets.
After the AMA became involved, the California Public Health Dept. held hearings regarding Rife-like frequency equipment. It is claimed that although declared safe by all scientific labs consulted, the state branch of the AMA supposedly declared such equipment unsafe.[44][45]
In December of 1953, the Allied Research Laboratory, Rife as one of its employees, conducted a study[46] using Rife's microscope and frequency instrument to treat cancer and tuberculosis in vitro.
In 1974 John Bedini and a group of scientific investigators approached John Francis Crane then owner of "Universal Virus Microscope" in order to set up a lab to reproduce and investigate Rife's work and original equipment. Barry Lynes was a member of the group that interviewed Crane, and Lynes's book "The Cancer Cure That Worked!" resulted from some of this research. In 2006 Bedini was a guest on a radio program about Dr. Royal Rife. The Bedini web site has dramatic videos of paramecia being either exploded or eviscerated, and destroyed virtually instantaneously using Rife-Hoyland-like radio frequency equipment,[21] in contrast to similar videos by other people using square waves that take several seconds' exposure to poke a single hole in one end of the single celled organisms.[47]
Electron microscopy cannot replicate Rife's observations because the sample is prepared by plating with a metal such as nickel or gold (see photo of mounted fly) or chemical staining via baking at 60 degrees C[48] as a treatment and then placed in a vacuum, killing any live specimens in the sample.[49] In 2003 mention of Rife's Un(i)versal Microscope were made in connection with the development of a new type of variable depth of field microscope that can view live microbes (mycoplasmas are mentioned) with some sample images provided.[50] In 2006 a Rife supporter completed and demonstrated what he calls a "proof of concept" microscope[51] designed to verify that the Rife optical instrument was viable.
In 2005-2006 newer microscopes have emerged that can view live samples at high magnification. University of Massachusetts Medical School, UCLA, University of Alberta - Edmonton, and University California San Francisco have what is called a multi-channel scanning 2-photon microscope. [52] Another engineering / physics investigator of Rife's work has said that he plans on being trained to use the UCLA microscope so that he can conduct tests using a Rife Phanotron or similar tube for recorded action of the supposed destruction of various smaller microbes.[53]
Rife's work was revived in the 1980s. An interest in Rife himself was revived by author Barry Lynes, who wrote a book about Rife entitled The Cancer Cure That Worked! This led to such groups as the Bioelectromagnetics Society. Some scientists are critical of Rife's work.
Those who claim to be continuing Rife's work today are accused of ignoring scientific method. Both Rife's original work and current theoretical and commercial offerings, such as Rife plasma lamp devices, remain unsupported by peer-reviewed research.[54] Quackwatch and other skeptics of alternative medicine have published articles critical of Rife.
The author(s) of the CA Cancer Journal for Clinicians 1994; 44; 115-127 article "Questionable methods of cancer management: electronic devices" wrote negatively about Rife. Quackwatch cites the article to discredit Rife. The article's author(s) clamed they "read descriptions of Rife's equipment," and based their conclusions on their "medical school teachings." However, the author(s) outlined no reasons (such as laws of physics), nor counter examples, nor outlined theoretically suitable power levels required for their acceptance that would permit such Rife-designed equipment to have worked, nor did they quote any experimental results that identify the power levels required for their acceptance. Nothing was offered to counter or disprove Rife's work and the results obtained by Dr. Johnson and other M.Ds who for years had worked with Rife-designed equipment.
For years microwave frequency radiation has been known to induce water molecule vibration, friction and heating. Very recently, surgical medicine has begun using radiofrequency (RF) ablation, often with a 50 to 150 Watt 460 kHz monopolar generator, to remove various cancers surgically via heating, illustrating that frequencies much lower than microwave are able to induce molecular level vibrations (heat/energy) on chemicals constituent in biological tissues. As with all radio frequency energy, this is non-ionizing radiation and unrelated to radiation therapy,
According to audio recordings of Rife, he invited medical institutions to observe and conduct experimental investigations with him at his labs. A couple of these institutions were going to send delegations until learning that Dr. Rife was not an M.D.
In the late 1980s a company by the name of "Life Energy Resources" mass-produced a device they called the "REM SuperPro Generator", ostensibly on the foundation of Rife's work (the acronym REM reportedly stood for Rife's Electromagnetic[55]). Three of the company's top distributors: Pat Ballistrea, Michael Ricotta, and Brian Strandberg, served prison time for selling unapproved medical devices and drugs as a result of their trials in 1993, 1994, and 1995.
By the end of the millennium, devices using Rife's name were widely available from many commercial sources. This included microscopes claiming to be derived from Rife's "Universal microscope," as well as devices advertised as "Beam Ray" equivalents claiming to cure anything from the common cold to Lyme disease to cancer. Peer-reviewed research reporting any effects of these machines or the technology involved was not available. It was not clear whether or not any of these devices were actually based on Rife's work. Growing criticism from mainstream science and demands for government intervention were apparent in the media. One example was a December 2000 Sydney Morning Herald article that stated "Cancer sufferers have died after putting their faith in a device with electrical parts worth just $15." Some countries saw the advent of "Rife" clinics which attracted customers worldwide, once again without independent verification or accreditation.
The Sydney Morning Herald article talks about several groups of people and types of machines. The key person in the article is a man who spent over $1000 on a treatment machine. The description of this expensive machine may indicate that it is not a radio tube device, but an electrode contact pad device like one of the square wave devices made by John Francis Crane, but that it had various frequency settings as well. It is said "With daily applications of the pads to his abdomen, David's cancer went into remission..." Crane's machines supposedly seldom worked (see John Bedini web site, listen to the audio. Bedini had two aunts--both had cancer. Both used a Crane machine, but only one spontaneously went into remission, the other had to use a radio tube Rife-Hoyland-type machine.) The particular subject man of the Sydney newspaper article, with untreatable cancer on his death bed had his cancer eliminated, but within a year the cancer reemerged to other parts of his body "with a vengeance." Royal Rife in his Allied Research Laboratory notes reports that he can kill the viruses causing cancer, yet the toxins and radicals that remain from the infection can be taken and injected into a healthy subject to cause the same disease without the introduction of the initial microorganism. Sources on the Internet claiming to be homeopathy practitioners cite this and similar cases as being similar to the phenomenon of having strengthening existing disease by providing insufficient or inappropriate simultaneous treatment of the other areas later negatively affected. In homeopathy practice, it is usual to expose a patient to an extremely dilute concentration of a toxin in order to strengthen the patient's resistance to that toxin. If the cancer that was to form later in the man's body made use of its exposure to the man's frequency treatment device to gain a resistance to it, that might explain why the later cancer was untreatable by the adjustable settings of the man's machine. This phenomenon is similar to how a microbe can gain resistance to a pharmaceutical drug, permitting super-bug mutations to spread in some hospitals today. In the 1934 trials, the two cases that did not immediately respond to the initial treatment had to be investigated so that treatment could be suitably adjusted. Without the benefit of a "virus" microscope, there would be no way to determine a newer power level, or experimentally tune to an appropriate new frequency that would be guaranteed to kill any new or different pathogens that were left behind. Perhaps the man's kidneys were unable to flush out the radicals and toxins (left behind by the destroyed microorganisms) that Rife reports as the probable direct cause of cancer in his Allied Labs reports? Even the Rife-Hoyland RF devices were known to go out of tune (requiring periodic frequency recalibration), and sometimes the tubes leaked their ionizing, partially vacuumed gas, and become weaker and virtually useless. Radio waves and power levels that Royal Rife was using were said to be able to treat a room full of people, although today's investigators have demonstrated that the Newton's Inverse Square Law is still in effect. Gary Wade, PhD, wrote that part of why Rife's Beam Ray tube treatment was credible was that virus infected diseased tissues would suddenly have these destroyed microbes excrete their toxins and radicals during treatments. The diseased infected cells would then be chemically poisoned by this, killing, for example the cancerous growths. Since the poison delivery was from within the diseased cells themselves, this would be a "highly targeted" (magic bullet) form of chemotherapy. However, Gary Wade mentions, if the patient had received X-ray (and possibly other) radiation therapy, malignancies not caused in any part by microbes may have occurred. Those malignant cells would not be delivered the "magic bullet" chemotherapy toxins and radicals. Such malignant tissue would therefore not respond to any such Rife treatment regimes.
Rife's experimental and observational claims conflict with several well-established areas of modern science. Those wishing to examine the evidence may compare the external links below with articles on spectroscopy, microscopy, and heterodyning.
The Cancer Cure That Worked. Barry Lynes. Markus Books, Queensville, Ontario, Canada, 1987. 169 pages. ISBN 0-919951-30-9
The Cancer Conspiracy: Betrayal, Collusion and the Suppression of Alternative Cancer Treatments. Barry Lynes. 256 pages. Elsmere Press (March 2002) ISBN 978-1885273123
Bird, Christopher: "What Has Become of the Rife Microscope?" New Age Journal. Boston, March 1976.
