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148 Suppressed Inventions and Other Discoveries
the blood of animals and humans—as well as in the saps of plants—a hitherto
unknown, ultramicroscopic, subcellular, living and reproducing
microscopic form, which he christened a somatid (tiny body). This new
particle, he found, could be cultured, that is, grown, outside the bodies of
its hosts (in vitro, "under glass," as the technical term has it). And,
strangely enough, this particle was seen by Naessens to develop in a pleomorphic
(form-changing) cycle, the first three stages of which—somatid,
spore, and double spore—are perfectly normal in healthy organisms, in
fact crucial to their existence. (See Figure 1.)
Even stranger, over the years the somatids were revealed to be virtually
indestructible! They have resisted exposure to carbonization tempera-
Figure 1. The Somatid Cycle
The figure above shows the complete somatid cycle first observed by Gaston
Naessens. The somatid is a subcellular living, reproducing form which has been
found to be virtually indestructible. This illustration shows the pleomorphic (formchanging)
somatid going through sixteen separate forms.