Albert Roy Davis

Albert Roy Davis
Born	(1915-06-18)June 18, 1915 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Died	August 1, 1984(1984-08-01)
Residence	Green Cove Springs, Florida, United States
Nationality	American (born in Canada)
Known for	Biological effects of magnetism; the claim that magnetism consists of two distinct energies
Scientific career
Fields	Biomagnetics, magnetism

Albert Roy Davis (June 18, 1915 – August 1, 1984) was a Canadian-born American researcher and self-described magnetic scientist who is regarded as a founder of the field he called biomagnetics — the study of the biological effects of magnetic fields. He is best known for his claim, first advanced in 1936, that magnetism consists of two separate and distinct energies with opposite effects, and for a series of books on the subject co-authored with Walter C. Rawls, Jr. Davis's ideas about the differing biological effects of magnetic poles fall outside mainstream physics and medicine.

Biography

Davis was born on June 18, 1915, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and immigrated to the United States in 1922. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1936. According to his own account, he attended the University of Florida and studied physics, electronics, and the behavioral sciences under a number of instructors in the United States and Europe during the 1930s.

In 1936 Davis established the Albert Roy Davis Research Laboratory in Green Cove Springs, Florida, where he carried out research on the effects of magnetic fields on organic and non-organic systems. He remained director of the laboratory, later associated with the Albert Roy Davis Aerial Phenomena Research Association and the United Science Federation, for the remainder of his career.

During the 1940s Davis worked in aeronautical electronics under contract to the Air Transport Command of the U.S. Army Air Force (through National Airlines), and later served in the U.S. Coast Guard Port Security Service, receiving an honorable discharge. He returned to full-time magnetic research after the war.

Davis died on August 1, 1984.

Scientific contributions

Davis said that in 1932 he became interested in the effects of a magnet's energies on living creatures, and that in 1936 he concluded that magnetism is composed of two energies rather than one — a claim he considered his central discovery. On this basis he developed what he termed the science of biomagnetics, the application of magnetic and electromagnetic fields to living systems.

Working from his Florida laboratory, Davis reported experiments applying magnetic fields to animals and other biological subjects, and claimed effects on pain, wound healing, and cell biology, including work he described as relating to cancerous versus non-cancerous cells. He also reported the design of instrumentation intended for medical and diagnostic applications of separated magnetic energies. In 1959 he introduced his biomagnetic methods in India, helping to train physicians at the Naihati Clinic in West Bengal under Dr. A. K. Bhattacharyya.

Davis said he was granted numerous patents in the United States and more than thirty foreign countries for magnetic and electronic devices developed over his career.

The claim that the north and south poles of a magnet produce fundamentally different biological effects, which underlies Davis's work, is not accepted by mainstream science, and magnet therapy is generally regarded by the scientific and medical communities as lacking rigorous supporting evidence.

Books

With his collaborator Walter C. Rawls, Jr., Davis wrote several books presenting the ideas of biomagnetics to a general and professional audience:

• Magnetism and Its Effects on the Living System (1974)
• The Magnetic Effect (1975)
• The Rainbow in Your Hands (1976)
• The Magnetic Blueprint of Life (1979)

He was also credited as author or co-author of Magnets and Magnetic Fields (1969, with Dr. A. K. Bhattacharyya) and The Master Course on Biomagnetics, and reported authoring hundreds of general-science courses distributed to schools in the United States and abroad.

Honors

Davis reported receiving a number of honorary degrees and awards for his work, including a Doctor of Natural Sciences from the Tesla-Edison Foundation (Boston, 1963), a fellowship in the College of Human Sciences of the University of Montreal, and memberships in the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and The Explorers Club. He stated that he was nominated for a Nobel Prize in medical physics in 1976. Many of these honors are self-reported and have not been independently verified.

External links

• Albert Roy Davis / Walter Rawls Biomagnetism at Rex Research
• Magnetism and Its Effects on the Living System at the Internet Archive