TELEVISION WAVES

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20261, 2 August 1937, Page 12

TELEVISION WAVES

USED IN NEW WAY. effect on human body. AID TO FIGHTING DISEASE. (Times Air Mall Service.) LONDON, July 8. Research men who have been studying the effect of ultra-short waves on the human body—the same waves that carry television broadcasts —are beginning to get definite results that may point to a new era in medicine, says the Sunday Express. Experiments tried out on human subjects show that some diseases that 1 formerly needed long and doubtful treatments can he successfully cured by shooting short waves through the affected part. Success has been reached mainly with ailments such as sciatica and lumbago, but some reports show signs of successful treatment of several types of tumours through short waves. This means that if the tumour can be dispersed by the waves no operation is necessary. Scientific opinion Is divided on what really causes the results. Some research workers say that the waves themselves break up the diseased cells, and thus disperse them. Others claim that the actual waved do nothing, but that the heat set up by them obtains the desired result. Nobody knows the real reason. Just Feels Warm. Although high voltages re used, there Is no possibility of electric shock. All that happens to the subject in the field of the rays in a sensation of heat. The body itself tries to provide this In, some diseases by setting up a high temperature and a fever. Waves, however, can obtain this effect with perfect control, so that the fever can be brought on and dispersed at will.. The apparatus Itself is complicated. The waves, coming from a small transmitter using up to 2000 volts, are from two to five metres In length. A 3.5 metre wave is at present being used in a London laboratory to destroy a preparation of tetanus toxin. This is the same wave-band as ultrashort wave television.