MARTYRS TO SCIENCE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 10222, 3 December 1904, Page 4

MARTYRS TO SCIENCE.

DISFIGURED BY THE X RAYS. Dr. Hall Edwards, Birmingham, a leading authority on X rays, is suffering from dermatitus disease, which attacks surgeons experimenting with Rontgen's discovery. His hands are fearfully disfigured, being almost covered with a kind ot wart. Tlie nails are black, and the skin coarse and dry. There is, it seems, no specific remedy for the disease, the only thing to be done being to refrain from operating. Sir Oliver Lodge, interviewed recently on the subjeot.expressed the opinion tliat the X rays themselves were nob responsible for "the sores, but something which accompanies them, and which can bo screened off by suitable appliances, whereas no sereen will completely obstruct the rays. Th© danger does not affect patients to the same degree, though he added tliat some patients also had 1 unfortunate results in the past. With suitable precautions, dermatitus might be avoided. It would be injudicious for the public to jump to the conclusion that the sores are of the nature of cancer, although they might simulatfi its appearance, and in certain cases might stimulate some previously existing cancerous tendency. It was probable that the sores were more akin to burns, in the infliction of which prliminary sensations are able to afford no warning. There are in London, it is said, a score of X ray operators suffering from that mysterious disease wlnich proved fatal iu the case of Mr Clanence Dally, Mr Edison's assistant.