Re: Wilhelm Roentgen

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

John Cameron,

You certainly made a great response to Alan Enns' inquiry about 'hearing any
stories or anecdotes about the 'olden days' ".  

I'd like a copy of your tape with Hodges. Can you provide a list of other
interviews with subjects that you have? Have they been transcribed? 

You should also send this to the MEDPHYS list, and your other response/comment 
on MEDPHYS to this list. (If you don't mind, I'd like to send this also to the 
ANS Biology and Medicine Division list.) 

Note that the 500 rad lifetime is consistent with the estimate for the UK
radiologists that started practice after 1921 reported on Smith and Doll,
1981, showing no adverse health effects compared to other comparable medical
practioners (as compared to radiologists practicing before 1921 that did have
excess cancers, but very much higher doses, including the radiologists who
practiced extensively in very long-hours and primitive field hospital
conditions in WW I.) 

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com
------------------------------------------------
> The problems of taking x-rays in the old days were not as clear cut as they
> appear from our modern view of x-ray imaging. In March of 1993 I did a 77
> minutes video interview with Dr. Paul Hodges, one of the pioneer
> radiologists.  He was then 100 years old! He first took x-rays in 1910 in
> his uncle's private hospital in Ashland Wisconsin. He was the chair of
> radiology at U of Chicago from 1928 to 1958! One of his proteges was Dr.
> Russell Morgan. Copies of the video interview are available from me for the
> cost of copying and mailing it. Dr. Hodges' twin sister was living in the
> same nursing home! He talked about the early problems with taking x-rays
> before grids were invented. They originally thought the poor images through
> thick body parts was due to off-focus radiation from their gas tubes!
> Compton's contributions were far in the future.
>         I have done similar interviews with Prof. Don Kerst, inventor of
> the Betatron and Dr. Juan del Regato who received his therapy training at
> the Curie Institute in Paris when Madame Curie was still the director.
> Those interested in therapy history might like to see the 4 hour video
> interview I did with Dr. Frank Ellis in Oxford who was doiing brachytherapy
> in 1931! Hodges, del Regator and Ellis all indicate that the risk from
> radiation is not as great as many people believe. Frank Ellis thinks his
> life time whole body dose is abou 500 rads. The dose to his finger tips on
> the right hand he estimates at over 15,000 rads. He does have an occasional
> basal cell growht nipped off his right index finger. 
> 
> >Just a reminder - it was 100 years ago today that Wilhelm Roentgen
> >discovered x-rays.
> >
> >I'd be interested in hearing any stories or anecdotes about the 'olden
> >days'.  I find that such information helps to animate a subject that many
> >non-physics-types tend to otherwise find too dry to be of interest.
> >
> >thanks,
> >
> >Alan Enns
> >aenns@unixg.ubc.ca
> John R. Cameron 2678 SW 14th Drive, Gainesville, FL 32608-2050 
> phone: 904/371-9865; fax 904/371-9866  e-mail: jrcamero@facstaff.wisc.edu