Recent electro-therapeutic work in medicine and surgery / by John Macintyre.

  • Macintyre, John.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Recent electro-therapeutic work in medicine and surgery / by John Macintyre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    sensitive mucous membranes. Many modilications ol Oudin's resonator were made, and I think it yet possible that some- thing may be done to modify these results. In consequence of careful study, however, I was induced to fall back on other means, of which I shall speak later. The subject was approached, however, in the following way :—The first thing which attracted my attention to the possibilities of therapeutic action was a dermatitis of my own hand, which occurred early in 1896. For reasons which need not be mentioned here, I was studying the effects of the rays on the fluorescent screen, and had placed a Bunsen burner below the tube. I was trying to verify the statements of J. J. Thomson as to the fact that there were different kinds of a;-rays. At the end of a few nights' experiments, my hand became affected to such an extent that it was impossible to proceed with the experi- ments. It is to be noted here that the conditions in the tube were just such as we now recognise to be the best possible for producing such a dermatitis. The tube was soft, blue in colour, with a bluish-white stream passing down the centre of it. The hand was placed within a few inches of the bulb. There was no protection to the skin, and the experiments were repeated very frequently. I may here say that one beneficial result of these experiments was that it enabled me to avoid reaction in working generally with the a;-rays ever since. I next went to the other extreme, and worked for a long period with hard tubes; and, thanks to Lord Blythswood, who presented me with an excellent device of his own for exhausting Crookes' tubes, I was able to make many experiments during the next two years in every possible condition of vacuum. My first observations were recorded in the Lancet at the date mentioned five years ago. There I stated that, at the time the dermatitis occurred, there were at least three possible agencies at work:—Firstly, cc-rays; secondly, heat waves; and, thirdly, electric discharges round the tube. I found, as the result of experiment, that the heat waves could practically be discarded, and I am not now going to enter into controversy as to whether the ;B-rays produce the dermatitis or not. For our work, however, we could not risk them in the region of the larynx. It seemed, therefore, that the electric discharges were worth while considering, and to these I directed special attention. The next fact which arrested my attention was one which occurred over two years ago, when I tried the effect of the electric discharges themselves upon a patient suffering from rodent ulcer in the nose and face. The patient had been operated upon three times before.