X-RAY MARTYR

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3471, 26 May 1934, Page 5

X-RAY MARTYR

CONTRACTS DISEASE WHILE

OPERATING.

Another X-ray martyr’s name must now be added to the list of men who have given their lives in the cause of medical science (says a London message). He was Arthur Stow, aged 57, of Thanet Road, Ramsgate, and he had struggled against the X-ray disease for 32 years before it overcame him. He first contracted the disease in 1902 when he was an X-ray operator at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was one of the pioneers in X-rays, for he started as a youth of 19 at Bart’s. It was not, however, until 190 6—four years after he actually contracted the disease — that his symptoms -were recognised as dermatitis. Mrs Stow, who is at present staying with her sister at Colonial Avenue, Whitton, Twickenham, told a Daily Mail reporter that her husband was always in pain, but apart from his family and those at the hospital his sufferings were unknown to anybody. He always went about with an appearance of cheerfulness and never complained. “My husband was almost helpless, but he preferred not to talk about his misfortunes, although he often told me that he was suffering perhaps for the benefit of other people. “We were granted a weekly allowance of 28s from Bart’s, but this was not sufficient for us to live on, so we took up a hoarding house to make ends meet.”