Immediate Uses of the X-Ray

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Immediate Uses
The X-Ray enters the medical and legal world

Early X-Ray

Before being widely adopted by hospitals, X-Ray practices were run out of private homes (note the wallpaper, curtains, and hardwood floor)
Copyright Radiology Centennial Inc.⁶⁰

After the public's initial infatuation with the X-Ray died down, the medical world began to carefully examine the potential uses of the invention. The availability of the equipment was widespread, thus making such investigations possible. In the meantime, many physicians were referring their patients to physics labs to get X-Rays before every medical procedure. This overload of patients helped create new home and office practices to help ease the burden of the science labs.⁶¹ Unfortunately, these new X-Ray centers were hot, crowded with wires and machines, and dangerous. It was soon realized that hospitals needed to take control of the X-Ray industry.

Boston Hospital was one of the first to create an X-Ray room. In 1896, Dr. Francis Williams was given the task of overseeing the new department, located in a small room in the basement of the library building. Over the next 19 years, Williams and his partner Dr. William Rollins, X-Rayed over 150,000 patients.⁶² Because of their extensive experience, they developed many improvements to the machine, including the "Rollins box", which housed the cathode tube and, unbeknownst to the inventors, simultaneously blocked the excessive radiation emanating from the energized tube. The two men also wrote the widely used book The Roentgen Rays in Medicine and Surgery. By 1905, the department had expanded to five full-time positions.⁶³

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Before
Man with skin disorder before

Man with skin disorder before

After

Man with skin disorder after

One of Dr. Rollins' patients with dermatitus herpetiformus, before and after X-Ray treatment
Copyright Radiology Centennial Inc.⁶⁴

As the number of clinics and hospital departments grew, unexpected affects were discovered. Doctors and technicians were discovering the curative effects of X-Rays upon people with cancer, tuberculosis, and skin disorders. In Chicago, a widely publicized case of an electrotherapist successfully irradiating a woman with breast cancer led to the widespread of "X-Ray therapy" for all kinds of disorders.⁶⁵ X-Rays were used to supposedly cure everything from ringworm to wrinkles; in fact, depilatory clinics were set up for purely cosmetic purposes in America and France. The X-Ray know had a variety of uses; not only did it replace using metal probes and fingers in removing harmless bullets, needles and other foreign objects from the body, but it was also used to cure other ailments as well.⁶⁶

By 1900 it was clear that the future of the X-Ray belonged to the medical world. Adoption was speeded along by the immediate availability of the apparatus and the immense public and professional fascination with the discovery.⁶⁷ However, it was simultaneously hindered by the older medical establishment. The doctors that controlled the hospitals were unsure of this strange contraption; therefore, they forced the newly created X-Ray departments into small rooms, away from the more important, traditional hospital departments.⁶⁸ Therefore, the younger generation was left to make improvements, which it often did; in 1896 Harvard medical student Walter Cannon used an ingested bismuth compound to track the digestive path, a variation of which is used to this day.⁶⁹ The growing popular demand for X-Rays eventually convinced the elder generation of the usefulness of these departments.

The legal world also began to use the X-Ray in its activities. Because of the increase in dentists using X-Rays in their practices, X-Ray records were used by the coroner in personal identification of bodies.⁷⁰ Even cause of death could be found using the ray; many murder cases were solved using this method.⁷¹ An illustrative case was the Orme trial of 1897 in New York. Orme returned home to find his wife with their boarder, Punzo, and a fight ensued where Orme shot Punzo in the head. Punzo remained in a daze for the following weeks and regained his strength. Before his trial began, the bullet hole had grown shut and the prosecutor needed X-Ray proof that the bullet was indeed lodged in his head. Surprisingly, after a 35-minute X-Ray was taken at an inch away from his head, the image failed to appear and Puzo died from the exposure. At the trial, the coroner concluded that, "We know no less what the X-Rays are than we know what light, heat and electricity are. All we know of any of them is by their effects...".⁷² Orme was acquitted, but the X-Ray was about to go on its own trial.

teeth x-ray

Dental X-Rays, like this first attempt in Germany, were often used to identify bodies
Copyright Radiology Centennial Inc.⁷³