WONDERS OF X-RAYS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1076, 15 March 1911, Page 9

WONDERS OF X-RAYS.

MARTYR TO SCIENCE HAS NO REGRETS. Some of the wonders of the X-rays, : and tho important part they play ' in modern surgery, were revealed to an audience at Bishopsgato Institute, London, recently, by Dr. J. Hall Edwards, who in his endeavours to relieve humanity has himself undergone much suffering.

The only practical use to which he kuu\y the X-rays were put, apart from medicine, was, he said, the discovery of pearls. Instead of the oyster being "destroyed in order to discover whether it contained pearls, the rays could bo used, and if nothing; was found the oyster was put back into the sea. The X-rays had the wonderful property of passing through every solid body in nature. The could show a needle enclosed in a bone, and, provided the exposuie were properly measured, could detect a sixpence in a 100-ton gun. Whereas twelve years ap.o it took -10 miiiutes to photograph 'through a fairsized human being, it could now be done in one-fifth of a second'.

If the sun gave off X-rays, why, one asked, was it that human beings" wore not shrivelled up? Hi 3 answer was that if they assumed the sun gave off those rays they also had to assume that the atmosphere, which surrounded ' the world to a thickness of 48 miles, offered so great a barrier that the rays could not get through it. Amid laughter, Dr. Hall Edwards declared that by X-ray photographs orio could see what was in a person's pocket or what he had had for dinner. Perhaps in a few years it would bo possible to tell what he was thinking.

"Unfortunately, X-rays are capable of producing very great harm," he continued. "No fewer than twelve broth-er-workers of mine have died in their efforts to produce the best from X-rays, and I have suffered very considerably. A great many men have sacrificed limbs and lingers in the interesting work of applying the X-rays for the benefit of humanity. But the sacrifice has not been made without producing a great amount of good, and I do not regret in the slightest what has happened at my expense, because I have had the personal pleasure of saving many lives. (ADnlause.)