 In what Sharaf writes was the origins of the orgone theory , Reich said he could see two kinds of bions , the blue vesicles and smaller red ones shaped like lancets . He called the former PA @-@ bions and the latter T @-@ bacilli , the T standing for Tod , German for death . He wrote in his book The Cancer <unk> ( 1948 ) that he had found T @-@ bacilli in rotting cancerous tissue obtained from a local hospital , and when injected into mice they caused inflammation and cancer . He concluded that , when orgone energy diminishes in cells through aging or injury , the cells undergo " <unk> degeneration . " At some point the deadly T @-@ bacilli start to form in the cells . Death from cancer , he believed , was caused by an overwhelming growth of the T @-@ bacilli . 
