DANGERS OF X-RAYS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 156, 26 March 1908, Page 7

DANGERS OF X-RAYS.

A SUFFERER. PENSION CRANTED. by telegraph—mcaa association —copyright. I London, Maroli 24. A Civil List pension of £120 a' year has been awarded Drl Hall Edwards', ''as" a martyr to the uso of the "X-rays/.■.'•-•■ GREAT CAUTION NEEDED;. 1 ■ It is well-known to medical men that continual exposure to X-rays lias a very, serious effect on the human body, and-most: injurious results have followed in several cases'."' An official in the Thames School of Mines a year or two ago became permanently incapacitated through frequent. use of tho rays in. his experimental work. A ; '.'burn" of,, the hand .was followed by amputation, and yet'.'eventually' death ensued. The. rays ore, however,, found to bo efficacious in the pure of certain diseases, such as rodent ulcers,; and i up-to-date apparatus for thif purpose is, in use at .the Wellington _ Hospital. It is recognised, however, that this treatment must be applied with the greatest caution. • The X-rays, aro still moi'6 'or less- a mystery. X is an unknown quantity..'lt'is probable ,that they aro not.a form of. matter, that is, that they are not particles at all, : but more in the nature of : pulses or [.waves in the surrounding ether set ,up by the impact of tho corpuscles or beta-rays. It is natural and, indeed, inevitable that tho vibrations, of corpuscles - should disturb tho surrounding ether into waves just as shaking a stick in watei; must set up water waves, or as the grosser atoms of matter set up, the ethereal waves of heat and light.. And it is'also'natural enough, that these waves set' Up r ljy corpuscular vibrations should bo very different in properties from those arising from, the vibration'ot; grosser atoms. It is probable that the X-rays are duo to ethereal: vibration, not material particles, and • that , the . gamma-rays from radium.are X-rays. , ■,