“If photographic plates are so readily affected by these rays, we must admit that animal cells also are affected to an appreciable degree. The X-rays that are being used to cure a patient may at the same time inflict radio-dermatitis on other persons exposed to their influence in adjoining rooms or buildings. Nothing will suffice for safety but to cover the walls and floors of X-ray rooms with sheets of lead from a quarter to half an inch thick, according to the power of the source and its distance from the lining....
“Biologic reactions from X-rays take two forms. The first is a skin lesion known as radio-dermatitis, caused by the skin’s absorbing a large quantity of radiations. The second results from the improvements in X-ray tubes and the use of filters absorbing the radiations of long wave length, currently named ‘soft radiation.’ This reaction takes place deep beneath the skin upon the active cells that are the most vulnerable. It is principally the internal secretion glands that are affected. Among those who continually receive even weak doses, a gradual lessening of vitality takes place, leading slowly to a physiological impoverishment that inevitably carries them off sooner or later.”
Dr. Contremoulins was able to escape serious injury up to the outbreak of the World War, but is now a victim of his services to wounded soldiers. As a result of his efforts—and due also, partly, to suits brought against a Paris physician by neighbors who alleged that their health had been impaired, resulting (perhaps) in two cases of cancer—a thorough-going investigation was undertaken by the French Ministry of Hygiene.
Dr. Declere of the Academy of Medicine presided over a committee which included Mme. Curie, M. Becquerel, a radiologist; Dr. Vaillant and a number of specialists. A leading member of the Academy said he did not believe that X-rays menaced persons who did not come into direct contact with them.
“I intend to study the question by three methods,” he said. “First, we shall make a purely physical examination, studying the action of the rays and in what measure they exert themselves at certain distances. Second, we shall experiment with the living tissues of rabbits, trying various distances several hours a day and noting the effect on the red and white corpuscles and glands of the animals. Then, since it is impossible to make such experiments on human bodies, we shall collect data based on 25 years’ experience with X-rays to see whether physicians in close contact have been burned.”
While X-ray treatment cannot be said to cure a deep-seated cancer, it is undoubtedly being given with highly beneficial results in many cases, alleviating much suffering and retarding the growth of malignant tissues.
As is well known, tuberculosis can advance to a dangerous stage before it exhibits physical symptoms recognizable by physicians. The X-ray not only brings to light incipient consumption, but reveals the exact place and extent of the lesion. Any abnormalities of the alimentary tract, also, may readily be brought to view, as well as certain effects produced on certain arteries, due to arterio-sclerosis or to angina pectoris (a very painful form of heart disease).
It has been well said that “the list of diseases, the presence and extent of which are betrayed or confirmed by the X-ray, would fill pages and would include most of the enemies to human health. Among them may be mentioned many forms of tuberculosis, occult abscesses whose ramifying consequences physicians were once unable to refer to their source, tumors, cancers, kidney stones, gastric ulcers, diseases of the heart.”
The martyrdom of radiologists has not been in vain.
In cases of emergency, X-ray diagnosis may now be given patients in their own homes. A surgical X-ray outfit that can be carried in an ambulance and taken to the bedside of a patient too ill for removal to a hospital passed a successful trial in England, thus adapting an emergency war-time arrangement to civilian use. A generator in the ambulance operates the tube, which has a special mounting that enables it to be placed over the patient’s bed, and adjusted for height and position by hand-wheels. The control apparatus is mounted on a separate stand, and connected with the ambulance outside by a cable wound on a reel. Provision is made for developing the exposed plates at once, so that a diagnosis can be made in a few minutes.