NEW SUCCESSES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 20, 25 January 1938, Page 17

NEW SUCCESSES

X-RAY AND DISEASES

Discoveries of the highest importance concerning the curative use of X-rays were revealed recently by Dr. S. Gilbert Scott, the radiologist, says the "Daily Telegraph and Morning Post."

Dr. Scott was delivering the Mackenzie Davidson Memorial Lecture before the British Institute of Radiology at the Central Hall, Westminster.

He described a system of "wide-field" X-ray therapy, by means of which "remarkable clinical results" have been obtained in many diseases hitherto considered outside the scope of X-ray treatment. Certain types of chronic rheumatism, blood and glandular diseases are among those successfully treated. The treatment consists of giving the patient an "X-ray bath." Its underlying principle differs from that upon which existing methods are based. Dr. Scott explained that X-rays have been used mainly for their effect on a localised part of the body. Very penetrating X-rays, for example, were directed in large and destructive doses lon to tumours or cancerous growths. This method, which, unfortunately, said Dr. Scott, is associated with severe upset of the patient, could be described j as surgical X-ray therapy. i USE OF BLOOD TEST. ! The new method might be called] "medical X-ray therapy." Instead of large destructive doses, small applications of X-rays of medium penetration are passed through a thin metal filter on to the whole of the patient's body. The dose is so small that any severe upset of the patient is avoided, yet the curative effect is very marked. Investigations have been carried out. over a long period at the London Hos-! pital. Important advances have been made recently by the use of a blood test by which it is possible to register the effect of the treatment on the patient. No definie theory can be offered to explain the curative effect, but it is suggested that X-rays in such small doses affect the functioning of the ductless gland system. This apparently stimulates the natural defensive powers inherent in the body.