Protection against Radiation

The increasing usefulness of roentgen rays in the diagnosis and treatment of various disease conditions is causing many institutions and physicians to add such facilities to their equipment. Owing to the more limited usefulness of radium and also to the cost, its distribution is not likely to become so widespread as that of roentgen rays. That these substances are not harmless agents is not sufficiently impressed on us until we read of the death from prolonged exposure to radium of three members of the staff of the Radium Institute of London, or the letter of a Chicago gynecologist who reports having encountered several cases of sterility caused by handling radium. This does not take into account the many cases of acute and chronic skin changes in patients and radiologists that are attributable to a single overdose, or to the cumulative effects of repeated exposures for long periods. Instances of accidental roentgen-ray and radium burns continue to occur. As regards diagnostic roentgenology, such accident...