History of X-rays

History of X-rays:
Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in 1895. Within the year, physicians were using X-rays for diagnosis and as a new way of gathering evidence to protect themselves against malpractice suits. Almost immediately--during 1895-96--it also became clear that X-rays could cause serious medical problems. Some physicians received burns that wouldn't heal, requiring amputation of their fingers. Others developed fatal cancers. Radiation treatment for benign (non-cancerous) diseases became a medical craze that lasted for over 40 years. Large groups of people were needlessly irradiated for such minor problems as ringworm and acne. Many women had their ovaries irradiated as a treatment for depression. Such uses of X-rays would today be viewed as quackery, but many of them were accepted medical practice into the 1950s.

Physicians weren't the only ones enthusiastic about X-ray therapies. If you get a large enough dose of X-rays, your hair falls out--so, beauty shops installed X-ray equipment to remove their customers' unwanted facial and body hair. Roentgen's discovery of X-rays in 1895 led directly to Henri Becquerel's discovery of the radioactivity of uranium in 1896, and then to the discovery of radium by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898--for which Becquerel and the Curies were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1903 (twenty years later, Madame Curie died of acute lymphoblastic leukemia). Soon, along with X-rays, physicians were prescribing radioactive radium. Radium treatments were prescribed for heart trouble, impotence, ulcers, depression, arthritis, cancer, high blood pressure, blindness, tuberculosis, and other ailments. Soon radioactive toothpaste, then radioactive skin cream, was being marketed.

In Germany, chocolate bars containing radium were sold as a "rejuvenator." In the U.S.A., hundreds of thousands of people began drinking bottled water laced with radium as a general elixir known popularly as "liquid sunshine." As recently as 1952, Life magazine wrote about the beneficial effects of inhaling radioactive radon gas in deep mines. Numerous studies now indicate that the only demonstrable health effect of radon gas is lung cancer. Thus, the medical world and popular culture together embraced X-rays (and other radioactive emanations) as miraculous remedies, gifts to humanity from the foremost geniuses of an inventive age.
It is incomprehensible that any competent, unbiased doctor could take the position that routine medical/dental, pre-employment, immigration, and now airport x-rays, do not pose a menace to all living cells through which they pass, leaving behind a painful and costly trail of destruction. At the dentist and doctor’s office, seeing as it is they who stand safely behind a lead wall, it will be you, not them who may develop cancer from the x-ray beam they are about to shoot through your body. Therefore, the final decision on whether the benefits outweigh the risks, rightfully belongs with you, today’s innocent patient, turned tomorrow’s potential cancer victim.


Ask your doctor if s/he can produce even a single study which proves that radiation when combined with the hundreds of other known carcinogens spilling into our air, water, and food is in fact safe? He couldn’t even produce a study which took so many variables into account. Why on earth should only “medical doctors” be permitted air time to express opinions on public health matters which impact the health and liberty of literally every single citizen in the nation?


There is a huge gulf between the term permissible and the word safe. So called risk/benefit assessments which attempt to balance “health effects” against “economic benefits” are too often structured to focus on risks and benefits to society (read governments and big business) as opposed to families or individuals (people).


A ten year old boy exposed to a full mouth dental x-ray exam has a one-in-600 chance of developing cancer in later life. Just one full body CT scan exposes a person to “...about the same dose of radiation as if you had been standing a mile and a half away from the atom bomb exploded at Hiroshima. Even a single x-ray increases a 3-month-old’s chances of developing cancer in later life by 10 times.
History of X-rays,Law of Unintended Consequences ,open-air explosions of nuclear bombs ,Nevada test site,Radioactive fallout ,inheritable mutations,International Committee for Radiation Protection ICRP
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