REVENGE OF X-RAYS.

Mt Benger Mail, 16 November 1938, Page 1

REVENGE OF X-RAYS.

DOCTOR’S SUFFERING. A few months ago the French radiologist Professor Charles Yaillant, underwent his fourteenth operation (writes Iwan Heilbut in the Pans Soir) He had contracted a disease which required so much surgical attention, as a result of-his research into the healing qualities of X-ray. Vaillant, who is 6o years of g , was one of the pioneers of radiology in France When he began to employ X-rays, neither he nor his colleagues knew much about their properties, and people had not yet learned to protec themselves from the destructive effects of the new healing agent. The rays took revenge on him for probing their secret by engendering a slow and corroding disease, similar to leprosy. Even, as early as when his first patients were being treated for cancer at the Paris hospitals, the dread disease was beginning to work its ravages in him. After his first operation, at which time he lost a few fingers, Vaillant began to realise the dangers inherent in the marvellous rays. He might have dropped his studies, for retreat was still open to him. But he never considered doing so, and continued for another 20 years to work with the treacherous rays which devoured his flesh, attacked his muscles, and destroyed his body bit by bit. HAS LOST HIS ARMS. The second operation removed a hand, and the third his whole forearm. His latest picture shows him with a hard look in his eyes, a white beard, and crooked collar and tie. He cannot straighten them any more, for he has no arms. ; it was a matter of course that Vaillant acted as he did. No other alternative could have occurred to him. Reflection, choice and decision in such matters were alien to his character. Again and again he ran into danger, that particular kind of peril which one docs not overcome by defeating an enemy and reaping praise, but the everpresent danger of risking one’s life for the sake of saving other lives. AT A HOME FOR VETERANS. Vaillant is now being cared for at rhe home for disabled war veterans. When he presented himself at the Hotel-Dieu Hospital for his last operation he told the director that he had “a little growth on the abdomen” which had to be removed. To the friends who called on him on the day of the operation he said, “Excuse me, gentlemen, they are just going to put me on the billiard table.’ ’ The operation was successful, and Vaillant went back to the veterans’ home. Only a few weeks of the year can this man spend at his little home in a Paris suburb enjoying himself in his garden, , while the heroes, who erect monuments and invent names for themselves even while they are still alive, are growing more numerous daily. /s>o such deserve to be called heroes or simply courageous, if they refuse to run the same risks into which they deliberately lure others? They assure their own retreat in every direction and speed away in powerful cars long before the roads are cut off before . them. The conception of heroism is based upon the extermination of other people. Who among them envisages his own downfall and is ready to make the much-hailed sacrifice demanded of the others? Likewise, are those who are lured into “voluntary” sacrifice deserving of the qualification of “courageous?” THE COURAGEOUS MAN. That man alone is courageous who goes into danger consciously, remaining cool and firm in its midst, and proving his courage in refusing to escape by the one road that remains open. Courage thrives only in the soil of liberty, not in that of coercion and restraint. The individual who is intoxicated with liquor, hatred, or fine words, is not conscious of the horrors into which ho is being sent. For once' he is in the melee his only thought is to - get out of it in some way. On the other hand, the soldier who silences his inner voice of fear and protest but goes on fighting lest he bo court martialled, although he feels that the cause for which he is fighting is not just, is rewarded and praised for his courage. Yet in the innermost recesses of his heart he knows that he would have deserved the distinction only if he had openly professed his feelings. It is deeply significant in our timjP that great courage, the conscious risking of one’s life, is found where salvation, not destruction, of human life is the ultimate purpose.