Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Medicine: Aftermath of X Rays
Medical men have been aware for half a century that X rays can be destructive to human tissue. Overdosage of X rays for benign purposes can have malignant consequences. Example: careless treatment may cure acne, but cause skin cancer. Despite this established knowledge, X rays are still being incautiously used as cure-alls.
In the New England Journal of Medicine, Drs. Bradford Cannon, Judson G. Randolph and Joseph E. Murray of Boston report that "patients continue to appear with permanent tissue destruction that has resulted from relatively recent radiation treatment of acne, plantar wart, eczema [and] superfluous hair." Examining 165 such cases from...
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