Related work: 1930s short-wave "specific effects" and later non-thermal microwave research, run 3, 2026-10-04

Sites: Google web search (Chrome); Wiley Online Library (new site); Springer Link (new site); Internet Archive full text (recheck); DEPATISnet (for GB 417,863). APS and Nature were seen only as Google result entries. Result: positive (priority 3; evidence for and against).

Queries tried

• Google: Grundler Keilmann 1983 "Physical Review Letters" yeast growth 42 GHz sharp resonances replication Furia; "Grundler" "Keilmann" "Sharp resonances in yeast growth"; Webb Booth 1969 Nature "absorption of microwaves by microorganisms"; Gandhi Hagmann 1980 "millimeter wave absorption spectra of biological samples"; Schliephake Esau Kurzwellen "spezifische Wirkung" OR "athermische" 1930er Wellenlänge Bakterien; "Die biologischen Wirkungen der Kurzwellen" Springer; Kappe Pieber Dallinger 2013 "Microwave effects in organic synthesis: myth or reality"
• Internet Archive full text of The Botanical Review 10(7), 1944 (searched in Chrome for Benedetti, Hertzian, Gärung, Hefe).
• Internet Archive: van Went, Ultrasonic and Ultrashort Waves in Medicine (Elsevier 1954), found but its text file could not be fetched (404 at the mirror); not read.

Findings

A. The 1930s context Kassner worked in

1. Schliephake and Compère, "Spezifische Wirkung des Ultrakurzwellenfeldes", Klin. Wschr. 1933 II, 1729; Schliephake, experiments on short electric waves and the growth of bacteria; Archangelsky, "Über die spezifische Wirkung des Ultrakurz[wellenfeldes]". All appear in the reference list of J. Kowarschik, Kurzwellentherapie (Springer, Wien 1936), chapter "Die biologischen Wirkungen der Kurzwellen", https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-28514-5_4 (paywalled; only the bibliographic record and the Google snippet were seen) [web]. The Google snippet of a Springer physiotherapy text says "Keiner der Versuche, welche die athermische Wirkung der Kurzwellen beweisen ..." (none of the experiments that [are said to] prove the athermic effect of short waves ...), and a Yumpu copy of a German text reads that "es eine spezifische Wirkung der K.W. auf Bakterien nicht gibt" (there is no specific effect of short waves on bacteria) [web, snippets only; sources and dates not opened]. So the "specific effect" of short and ultrashort waves was an open, actively disputed question in German medicine exactly when Ternion was funded (1932-37).
2. Liebesny and Wertheim, GB 417,863 (applied 11 Apr 1933, Austrian priority 12 Apr 1932, published 11 Oct 1934), "A method of influencing technically useful micro-organisms, and ferments" [web: https://depatisnet.dpma.de/DepatisNet/depatisnet?action=bibdat&docid=GB000000417863A]. Radiation "of wavelengths between 120 m. and 1,8 mm" in a condenser field, applied intermittently, with cooling, to yeasts, lactic, butyric and acetone bacilli, Aspergillus, cheese organisms (Penicillium camemberti, roqueforti) and others; the beneficial influence on one organism may be combined with "deleterious influencing" of another; a yeast infected with acetic-acid bacteria was cleared of them. It is a near-contemporary Vienna patent on frequency-chosen biological effects (its number is close to Kassner's GB 417,501 and 417,564, published the same year). Paul Liebesny is also cited (Arch. Phys. Therapy 1939) in the 1960 Navy survey for pearl-chain formation (see 2026-10-04-heller-pearl-chain.md).
3. The Botanical Review 1944 context (R. L. Weintraub, "Radiation and Plant Respiration", Bot. Rev. 10(7), 1944, p.434) [web: https://archive.org/stream/botanical-review_1944-07_10_7/botanical-review_1944-07_10_7_djvu.txt]. Under "Hertzian Radiation": Benedetti found yeast fermentation rates rose or fell "depending upon the culture medium, the duration of treatment and the frequency used"; "Others have claimed" (ref. 168 = Liebesny and Wertheim, GB 417,863) increases for wavelengths 1.8 mm to 120 m; stimulation of yeast CO2 at 1.7 and 1.88 m (ref. 237, not identified); and "Claim of stimulation of bacterial fermentation is made in a patent issued to Ternion A.-G. (294)" = GB 417,501. The reviewer reports these as claims and does not weigh them. So in 1944 Kassner's patent was filed in a mainstream review next to a small cluster of frequency-dependent fermentation reports.

B. Later non-thermal, frequency-specific claims and their tests

4. Webb and Booth, "Absorption of Microwaves by Microorganisms", Nature 222, 1199-1200 (1969) [web: Google result for nature.com and PubMed PMID 4892471]. Reported sharp absorption by microorganisms in the millimetre range; their earlier report with Dodds: 136 GHz interferes with growth of E. coli (Glaser archive snippet).
5. Grundler and Keilmann, "Sharp Resonances in Yeast Growth Prove Nonthermal Sensitivity to Microwaves", Phys. Rev. Lett. 51, 1214-1216 (1983) [web: link.aps.org result PhysRevLett.51.1214; cited about 230 times]. Earlier: Grundler, Keilmann and Fröhlich, Physics Letters A 62, 463-466 (1977). This is the closest later analogue of Kassner's claim 1: narrow frequency windows (around 41.7 GHz) with a biological effect at low power.
6. Gos, Eicher, Kohli and Heyer, Bioelectromagnetics 18:142-155 (1997) [web: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/(SICI)1521-186X(1997)18:2%3C142::AID-BEM7%3E3.0.CO;2-2]. Exposed exponentially growing S. cerevisiae from 41.682 to 41.710 GHz in 2 MHz steps at 0.5 and 50 microW/cm^2, with concurrent control and test chambers at every step, scored by time-lapse photography: "no consistently significant differences between exposed and unexposed cells. This is in contrast to previous studies claiming nonthermal effects". A designed replication that did not reproduce Grundler and Keilmann.
7. Gandhi, Hagmann, Hill, Partlow and Bush, "Millimeter wave absorption spectra of biological samples", Bioelectromagnetics 1:285-298 (1980) [web: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bem.2250010305]. Swept 26.5-90 GHz on DNA and RNA solutions and suspensions of BHK cells, Candida and E. coli: "Sharp spectra reported by other workers were not observed"; aqueous samples showed "a water-like dependence on frequency"; reduced power, no modulation and temperature control made no difference; frozen BHK samples (dry ice, liquid nitrogen) "still showed no reproducible peaks"; "the spectral resonances reported by others are likely to be in error." This bears directly on Kassner's claim 1 (sharp bands in serum and other biological liquids) and on his frozen-electret idea (claim 2), though at much higher frequencies (26-90 GHz) than Kassner's 90 cm (about 0.33 GHz) serum band.
8. Non-thermal microwave effects in chemistry: Kappe, Pieber and Dallinger, "Microwave Effects in Organic Synthesis: Myth or Reality?", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 52:1088-1094 (2013) [web: PubMed and Wiley result entries], and a published "Correspondence on Microwave Effects in Organic Synthesis" in reply (SciSpace entry, authors not opened). The dispute over "specific" or "non-thermal" microwave effects on reactions continued into the 2010s; it bears on Kassner's catalyst-free curing and polymerisation examples (claim 3) and on Arnold's "selective activation" of reactants.

How this bears on the claims

Next

• Read Kowarschik 1936 (library or Springer access) for what was tested and how the specific-effect claims were judged in 1933-36.
• Identify Botanical Review ref. 237 (yeast CO2 at 1.7 and 1.88 m) and Benedetti's paper.
• Read the 1983 PRL and the 1997 Gos paper in full (discussion of why results differ).