Rowing Out Of Their Fjords

Northern Advocate, 14 November 1941, Page 8

Rowing Out Of Their Fjords

, Norwegian patriots crossing the North Sea in rowing boats to fight for their country’s freedom have helped British scientists to make important experiments . in X-ray photography. London radiologists (in the Ilford Radiographic Technical and Demonstra- , tion Department) have been developing ; what might be called mass miniature radiography; that is, the taking of X-ray photographs with a miniature camera so 1 that large numbers of people can be examined for tuberculosis' and heart disease quickly and economically. The Norwegians took part ‘in ' these experiments because their London headquarters welcomed the chance to find out their state of health. Some of them crossed to Britain after the raid on the Lofoten Islands; others, acting on their own initiative, descended to the fiords under cover of darkness and pushed off' in tiny craft, smaller even than those in which their Viking ancestors once crossed the North Sea. Between 50 and 60 men who had got to Dakar, in French West Africa, came on from there. A feature of their X-ray photographs I is the abnormal development of the chest muscles, resuiting from long hours at the oars of their small boats. Mass miniature radiography, which is used extensively in the South African diamond mines, is of great value at the I present time, when service recruits, war I factory workers and users of air-raid shelters (who might have pulmonary I lesions which would be missed in the ordinary clinical examination) can be | X-rayed at the rate of 300 an hour. | Several thousand people are dealt with in a day or so, whereas with ordinary radiography this would take weeks, even if it could be organised at all. MoreI over, the tinv negative used costs only j Had, against 2/8 of the usual loin, by 12in. 1 fiim.

N.Z. .Dancer.—A London message, says critics commend the performance of the New Zealand dancer. Bebe de Roland, in ballet at the Garrick Theatre. One describes her as the bright spot of the evening. and another refers to her pretty dancing in the name part of “Cinderella.’’’