SACRIFICE OF RESEARCH DOCTOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 77, 1 April 1938, Page 3

SACRIFICE OF RESEARCH DOCTOR

Revenge of X-Rays

FEW mon ms ago the French radiologist. Professor Charles Vaillant. underwent his fourteenth operation, writes Iwan Heilbut. Ho had contracted a disease which required so much surgical attention, as a result of his research into the healing qualities of X-ray. Vaillant, who is sixty-five years of age, was one of the pioneers of radiology in France. When he began to employ X-rays, neither he nor his collea- | gues knew much about, their properties i and people had not. yet learned to pro--1 teci themselves from the destructive effects of the r.ew healing agent. The rays took revenge on him for probing their secret, by engendering a slow and corroding disease, similar to leprosy, i Even tis early as when his first patients were being treated for cancer at the Paris hospitals, the dread disease was beginning to work its ravages in him. After his first operation, at which time he lost a few fingers, Vaillant began to realise the dangers inherent in the marvellous rays. He might have dropped his studies, for retreat was still open to him. But he never considered doing so, and continued for another twenty years to work with the treacherous rays which devoured his flesh, attacked his muscles, and destroyed his body bit by bit. The second operation removed a hand, and the third his whole forearm. His latest picture shows him with a hard look in his eyes, a white beard, and crooked collar and tie. He cannot streighten them any more, for he has no arms. It was as a matter of course that Vaillant acted as he did. No other alternative could have occurred to him. Reflection, choice, and decision in such matters were alien to his character. Again and again he ran into danger, that particular kind of peril which one does not overcome by defeating an enemy and reaping praise, but the ever present danger of risking one’s life for the sake of saving other lives. Where?’ • ’:seudo-heroes create hazards about brag, Vaillant, the true but modest h?;ro, faced danger daily, driven by an inborn impulse to do the right and nec.essary thing by his fellow men. He proved that one could be a hero without weapons, and that true heroism consisted not in the stuggle against, but for, the liv being, if need be, at the risk of own life. Vaillant is now being cared for at |

the home for disabled war veterans When he presented himself at the Hotel-Dieu Hospital for his last operation he told the director that he had “a little growth on the abdomen” which had to be removed. To the friends who called on him on the day of the operation he said, “Excuse me. gentlemen, they are just going to put me on the billiard-table.” The operation was succesful and Vaillant went back to the veterans’ home. Only a few weeks of the year can this man spend at his little home in a Paris suburb, enjoying himself in his garden, while the heroes, who erect monuments and invent names for themselves even while they are still alive, are growing more numerous daily. Do such deserve to be called heroes or simply courageous, if they refuse to run the same risks into which they deliberately lure others? They assure their own retreat in every direction and speed away in powerful cars long before the roads arc cut off before them. Their conception of heroism is based upon the extermination of other people. Who among them envisages his own downfall and is ready to make the much-hailed sacrifice demanded of the others? Likewise, are those who are lured into “voluntary” sacrifice deserving of the qualification of “courageous?” That man alone is courageous who goes into danger consciously, remaining cool and firm in its midst, and proving his courage in refusing to escape by th« one road that remains open. Courage thrives only in the soil of liberty, not in that of coercion and restraint. The individual who is intoxicated with liquor, hatred, or fine words, is not conscious of the horrors into which he is being sent. For once he is in the melee his only thought is to get out of it in some way. On the other hand the soldier who silences his inner voice of fear and protest but goes on fighting lest he be court-martilcd, although he feels that the cause for which he is fighting is not just, is rewarded and praised for his courage. Yet in the innermost recesses of his heart he knows that he would have deserved the distinction only if he had openly professed his feelings. It is deeply significant in our time that great courage, the conscious risking of one’s life, is found where salvation, not destruction, of human life is -the ultimate purpose.