Roentgen Rays—Consumption.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 204, 29 August 1896, Page 3 (Supplement)

Roentgen Rays—Consumption.

Condition of this Lungs Easily Ascek-

TAINED BY MEANS OF THE LIGHT.

More interest is taken in the cathode ray exhibit, in ' Mechanic's Building, where the meeting of the Massachusetts Medical Society is being held, than in all the other exhibits put together, and Russell Hall was crowded all the morning with medical men, anxious to see the revelations which were being made bhere by the new iighb. Dr. H. A. Codman haa charge ot the exhibit, and it is one of the largest and most complete ever shown anywhere. The chief objecb of interest is the big fluoroscope, by which the whole upper part of a man's body, penetrated by the cathode rays, ie shown. This is done by throwing the shadow from the tube on a large canvas screen forming one side of a box in which the observer sibs. By means of this apparatus the interior of the man's chest could be plainly seen, with the outline of the different organs against the iighb from the tube. The man shown this morning was a consumptive, having had a cough for about: two years, and the cathode ray showed his condition very distinctly. The right lung, which was healthy, was penetrated by the lighb so that the ribs on the front and back coald be seen plainly, but on the left side the lung was tuberculous, and the ray did not; penetrate, ho that only a dark mass could be seen. This exhibition caused the greatest interest, not only among those of the physicians who make a specialty of diseases of the lungs, but among nearly all who attended the meeting. There was a line waiting all the morning, which extended from the apparatus across the room and out to the door of the main hall, and, as it took less than half a "minute to make the examination, it is probable thab several hundred physicians musb have seen it up to noon.

Besides this largo iluoroacope, there were several instruments of the ordinary kind, on which examinations were made by means of eye shields. One of these instruments was more powerful than the one used on the large fluoroscope, although, of course, only a small parb of the body could be seen by it. Not only could the riba and vertebrae be seen plainly when one of the eye shields was held against a man's chest, but, when a pair of forceps was held against his back, on the outside of the coat, they could be distinguished without difficulty. Several of the men there had fractures in some of their bones, and these were plainly shown on one of. the machines, giving an excellent demonstration of the value of tha cathode ray in medical work.

In another part of the room photographs made by the X ray process were thrown upon a canvas by a stereopticon, showing some excellent) cases of broken bones and dislocated joints, and also cases where objects were imbedded in the flesh, one or two of which it would probably have been impossible to find without the aid of the cathode ray.—c Boston Transcripb,'