The Clinic as Laboratory: The Case of Radiation Therapy, 1896-1920

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Volumn 72, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 663-688

  Hayter, Charles R R ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CANADA; HISTORY; HUMAN; NEOPLASM; RADIOTHERAPY; UNITED STATES;

CANADA; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; NEOPLASMS; RADIOTHERAPY; UNITED STATES;

EID: 0032246277     PISSN: 00075140     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/bhm.1998.0213     Document Type: Article

References (131)

1. Edmund E. King, "Skin, Hair, and Nail Lesions Produced by the Action of X-Rays," Can. Practit., 1896, 21: 789-93.
2. George E. Pfahler, "The Development of Roentgen Therapy during Fifty Years," Radiology, 1945, 45: 503-21, discussion on p. 504.
3. Ibid., p. 505. See also S. Tousey, "Origin and Development of X-Ray Therapy," Amer. J. Electrother. Radiol., 1923, 41: 52-59.
4. Ibid., p. 505. See also S. Tousey, "Origin and Development of X-Ray Therapy," Amer. J. Electrother. Radiol., 1923, 41: 52-59.
5. H. Dieter Kogelnik, "Inauguration of Radiotherapy as a New Scientific Specialty by Leopold Freund One Hundred Years Ago," Radiother. Oncol., 1997, 42: 203-11.
6. William Allen Pusey, "Roentgen-ray Therapy Twenty Years Ago," JAMA, 1923, 81: 1257-60.
7. See, for example, Erwin H. Ackerknecht, Therapeutics: From the Primitive to the Twentieth Century (New York: Hafner Press, 1973).
8. See, for example, the table in Morris J. Vogel and Charles E. Rosenberg, eds., The Therapeutic Revolution: Essays in the Social History of American Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979), p. 248.
9. Juan A. del Regato, Radiological Oncologists: The Unfolding of a Medical Specialty (Reston, Va.: Radiology Centennial, 1993).
10. E. R. N. Grigg, The Trail of the Invisible Light: From X-Strahlen to Radio(bio)logy (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1965); Richard F. Mould, A Century of X-Rays and Radioactivity in Medicine, with Emphasis on Photographic Records of the Early Years (Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1993).
11. E. R. N. Grigg, The Trail of the Invisible Light: From X-Strahlen to Radio(bio)logy (Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1965); Richard F. Mould, A Century of X-Rays and Radioactivity in Medicine, with Emphasis on Photographic Records of the Early Years (Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing, 1993).
12. Radiation Oncology Centennial Series, Internat. J. Radiol. Oncol. Biol. Phys., 1996, 35-36 (1-5).
13. Joel D. Howell, Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
14. Vogel and Rosenberg, Therapeutic Revolution (n. 7); Harry M. Marks, The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 1900-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
15. Vogel and Rosenberg, Therapeutic Revolution (n. 7); Harry M. Marks, The Progress of Experiment: Science and Therapeutic Reform in the United States, 1900-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
16. Paul Weindling, "From Medical Research to Clinical Practice: Serum Therapy for Diphtheria in the 1890s," in Medical Innovations in Historical Perspective, ed. John V. Pickstone (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), pp. 72-83.
17. Marks, Progress of Experiment (n. 12), p. 45.
18. Jacalyn Duffin and Alison Li, "Great Moments: Parke, Davis and Company and the Creation of Medical Art," Isis, 1995, 86:1-29.
19. J. T. Grossmith, "The Rehabilitation of Thalidomide," Linacre's, 1997, 1: 8-10.
20. David Cantor, "Cortisone and the Politics of Drama, 1949-55," in Pickstone, Medical Innovations (n. 13), pp. 165-84.
21. One study that does address this problem is John Harley Warner, "The Fall and Rise of Professional Mystery: Epistemology, Authority and the Emergence of Laboratory Medicine in Late Nineteenth-Century America," in The Laboratory Revolution in Medicine, ed. Andrew Cunningham and Perry Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 110-41.
22. Louis Wickham and Paul Degrais, Radiumtherapy (London: Cassell, 1910).
23. James T. Case, "The Early History of Radium Therapy and the American Radium Society," Amer. J. Roentg., 1959, 82: 574-85. See also Kenneth S. Davis, "The History of Radium," Radiology, 1924, 2: 334-42; Maurice Tubiana, Jean Dutreix, and Bernard Pierquin, "One Century of Radiotherapy in France 1896-1996," Internat. J. Radiol. Oncol. Biol. Phys., 1996, 35: 227-42.
24. James T. Case, "The Early History of Radium Therapy and the American Radium Society," Amer. J. Roentg., 1959, 82: 574-85. See also Kenneth S. Davis, "The History of Radium," Radiology, 1924, 2: 334-42; Maurice Tubiana, Jean Dutreix, and Bernard Pierquin, "One Century of Radiotherapy in France 1896-1996," Internat. J. Radiol. Oncol. Biol. Phys., 1996, 35: 227-42.
25. James T. Case, "The Early History of Radium Therapy and the American Radium Society," Amer. J. Roentg., 1959, 82: 574-85. See also Kenneth S. Davis, "The History of Radium," Radiology, 1924, 2: 334-42; Maurice Tubiana, Jean Dutreix, and Bernard Pierquin, "One Century of Radiotherapy in France 1896-1996," Internat. J. Radiol. Oncol. Biol. Phys., 1996, 35: 227-42.
26. Carroll Chase, "American Literature on Radium and Radium Therapy prior to 1906," Amer. J. Roentg., 1921, 8: 766-78.
27. Ibid., p. 767.
28. Robert Abbe, "The Therapeutics of Radium," Canada Lancet, 1914, 47: 580-94.
29. Ruth Brecher and Edward Brecher, The Rays: A History of Radiology in the United States and Canada (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1969).
30. Pfahler, "Development" (n. 2), p. 504.
31. Tubiana, Dutreix, and Pierquin, "One Century" (n. 20), p. 228.
32. Pfahler, "Development" (n. 2), p. 505.
33. Ibid. See also Davis, "History of Radium" (n. 20), pp. 340-41; C. H. Viol, "History and Development of Radium Therapy," J. Radiol., 1921, 2: 29-34.
34. Ibid. See also Davis, "History of Radium" (n. 20), pp. 340-41; C. H. Viol, "History and Development of Radium Therapy," J. Radiol., 1921, 2: 29-34.
35. Ibid. See also Davis, "History of Radium" (n. 20), pp. 340-41; C. H. Viol, "History and Development of Radium Therapy," J. Radiol., 1921, 2: 29-34.
36. Chase, "American Literature" (n. 21).
37. Charles R. Dickson, "Some Uses of the X-Ray Other Than Diagnostic," Dominion Med. Monthly & Ontario Med. J., 1902, 19: 72-76; F. W. Hett, "The Use of X-Rays in Cancer, Lupus and Hodgkin's Disease," ibid., pp. 76-80; John McMaster, "Some Results That Are Being Attained by the Use of X-Rays, with Exhibition of Patients," ibid., pp. 61-72.
38. Charles R. Dickson, "Some Uses of the X-Ray Other Than Diagnostic," Dominion Med. Monthly & Ontario Med. J., 1902, 19: 72-76; F. W. Hett, "The Use of X-Rays in Cancer, Lupus and Hodgkin's Disease," ibid., pp. 76-80; John McMaster, "Some Results That Are Being Attained by the Use of X-Rays, with Exhibition of Patients," ibid., pp. 61-72.
39. Charles R. Dickson, "Some Uses of the X-Ray Other Than Diagnostic," Dominion Med. Monthly & Ontario Med. J., 1902, 19: 72-76; F. W. Hett, "The Use of X-Rays in Cancer, Lupus and Hodgkin's Disease," ibid., pp. 76-80; John McMaster, "Some Results That Are Being Attained by the Use of X-Rays, with Exhibition of Patients," ibid., pp. 61-72.
40. Hett, "Use of X-Rays" (n. 30), p. 80.
41. CMA Annual Meeting Report, "The X-Ray as a Therapeutic Agent," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1902, 27: 598.
42. J. Third, "The Roentgen Ray: early Diagnosis of Tubercular and Other Lesions," Kingston Med. Quart., 1900, 4: 99-106, quotation on p. 100.
43. J. Third, "Some of the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Uses of the Roentgen Rays," Canada Lancet, 1902, 35: 526-35, quotation on p. 533.
44. Ibid., p. 534.
45. Edith H. Quimby, "The Background of Radium Therapy in the United States, 1906-1956," Amer. J. Roentg., 1956, 75: 443-50.
46. Wickham and Degrais, Radiumtherapy (n. 19); E. Berven, S. Hultberg, H. Kottmeier, et al., The First Fifty Years: Radium-hemmet 1910-1937 and King Gustaf V Jubilee Clinic 1938- 1960 Acta Radiologica Suppl., 1965, 250; G. S. Ryerson, "A Digest of the First Annual Report of the Radium Institute," Canada Lancet, 1913, 46: 489-93.
47. Wickham and Degrais, Radiumtherapy (n. 19); E. Berven, S. Hultberg, H. Kottmeier, et al., The First Fifty Years: Radium-hemmet 1910-1937 and King Gustaf V Jubilee Clinic 1938-1960 Acta Radiologica Suppl., 1965, 250; G. S. Ryerson, "A Digest of the First Annual Report of the Radium Institute," Canada Lancet, 1913, 46: 489-93.
48. Wickham and Degrais, Radiumtherapy (n. 19); E. Berven, S. Hultberg, H. Kottmeier, et al., The First Fifty Years: Radium-hemmet 1910-1937 and King Gustaf V Jubilee Clinic 1938- 1960 Acta Radiologica Suppl., 1965, 250; G. S. Ryerson, "A Digest of the First Annual Report of the Radium Institute," Canada Lancet, 1913, 46: 489-93.
49. R. F. Robison, "The Radium 'Business' of Providing Medical Sources," Curr. Oncol., 1996, 3: 156-62.
50. Viol, "History and Development" (n. 28).
51. Frederick Bryant, "Radiotherapy," Boston Med. Surg. J., 1919, 181: 270-76, quotation on p. 276.
52. Ibid., p. 276.
53. John Harley Warner, "From Specificity to Universalism in Medical Therapeutics: Transformation in the Nineteenth-Century United States," in History of Therapy: Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on the Comparative History of Medicine - East and West, ed. Yoshio Kawakita, Shizu Sakai, and Yasuo Otsuka (Tokyo: Ishiyaku EuroAmerica, 1990), pp. 193-223, quotation on p. 206.
54. Ibid., p. 206.
55. Marks, Progress of Experiment (n. 12), p. 21.
56. Christa Habrich, "The Development of Chemotherapy in Germany in the Twentieth Century," in Kawakita et al., History of Therapy (n. 42), pp. 225-59.
57. Jean Graham, "Aikins, William Henry Beaufort (1859-1924)," in A Standard Dictionary of Canadian Biography: The Canadian Who Was Who, vol. 2 (Toronto: Trans-Canada Press, 1934), pp. 3-4.
58. Charles G. Roland and Paul Potter, An Annotated Bibliography of Canadian Medical Periodicals 1826-1975 (Toronto: Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine, 1979).
59. Viol, "History and Development" (n. 28).
60. Aikins, "Present Status" (n. 52), p. 468.
61. Canadienne [pseud.], "Radium as a Remedy," Saturday Night, 17 January 1914, p. 29.
62. Aikins and Harrison, "Radium in Dermatology" (n. 53).
63. William H. B. Aikins, "Personal Experiences with Radium," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1914, 39: 535-45, quotation on p. 540.
64. William H. B. Aikins, "Radium in Toxic Goitre," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1920, 45: 339-50.
65. William H. B. Aikins and F. C. Harrison, "Radium in Gynaecological Conditions," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1912, 37: 567-75, quotation on p. 569.
66. William H. B. Aikins, "Radium in Certain Pelvic Conditions," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1921, 46: 37-45.
67. William H. B. Aikins and K. M. B. Simon, "The Histological and Clinical Changes Induced by Radium in Carcinoma and Sarcoma," Dominion Med. Monthly & Ontario Med. J., 1914, 43: 97-107.
68. Pusey, "Roentgen Therapy" (n. 5), quotation on p. 1257.
69. Ibid.
70. McMaster, "Some Results" (n. 30), p. 66.
71. Dickson, "Some Uses" (n. 30), p. 75.
72. Pfahler, "Development" (n. 2), pp. 512-14, quotation on p. 514.
73. Report of the Royal Commission on the Use of Radium and X-Rays in the Treatment of the Sick, Etc., Legislative Assembly of Ontario: Sessional Paper No. 41 (Toronto: Herbert H. Ball, 1932), p. 41.
74. Henry S. Kaplan, "Historic Milestones in Radiobiology and Radiation Therapy," Semin. Oncol., 1979, 6: 479-89, quotation on p. 479.
75. Pfahler, "Development" (n. 2), p. 507.
76. Joan Austoker and Walter Bodmer, A History of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, 1902-1986 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
77. Marks, Progress of Experiment (n. 12).
78. Ibid., p. 38.
79. Susan E. Lederer, Subjected to Science: Human Experimentation in America before the Second World War (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995).
80. See, for example, S. E. D. Shortt, "Physicians, Science, and Status: Issues in the Professionalization of Anglo-American Medicine in the Nineteenth Century," Med. Hist., 1983, 27: 51-68.
81. Warner, "From Specificity" (n. 42), p. 216.
82. "Radium," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1907, 32: 509-11; G. E. Armstrong, "On the Use of Radium in Paris," Montreal Med. J., 1909, 38: 375-80.
83. "Radium," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1907, 32: 509-11; G. E. Armstrong, "On the Use of Radium in Paris," Montreal Med. J., 1909, 38: 375-80.
84. Editorial, "Comment from Month to Month," Dominion Medical Monthly and Ontario Medical Journal, 1914, 42: 143-44, quotation on p. 143.
85. "The New Quackery," Can. Med. Assoc. J., 1914, 4: 128-29, quotation on p. 129.
86. "Radium," Dominion Med. Monthly & Ontario Med. J., 1903, 21: 194-96, quotation on p. 195.
87. "Radium and Its Discoverer, Madame Curie," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1908, 33: 202-6, quotation on p. 203.
88. "Professor Rutherford and Radium," Montreal Med. J., 1904, 33: 121-23, quotation on p. 122.
89. Robert H. Craig, "Reasons Why Radiation of the Larynx with Radium Should Prove More Effectual: Presentation of a Radium Laryngeal Applicator," Can. Med. Assoc. J., 1933, 29: 615-17, quotation on p. 615.
90. Warner, "Fall and Rise" (n. 18), p. 110.
91. See, for example, the Davis and Kidder Electric Machine in Shomer S. Zwelling, Quest for a Cure: The Public Hospital in Williamsburg, 1773-1885 (Williamsburg: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1985), p. 43.
92. See the lithograph "Radiation Treatment" by Ivo Saliger in J. Hist. Med. Appl. Sci., 1978, 33. Description of lithograph by Barbara E. Brunner on p. 550; lithograph inserted between pp. 550 and 551, unpaginated.
93. Canadienne, "Radium as a Remedy" (n. 56), p. 29.
94. Vogel and Rosenberg, Therapeutic Revolution (n. 7), p. 20.
95. Warren B. Hill, "Modern Therapeutics," JAMA, 1900, 34: 28-29, quotation on p. 29.
96. Augustus H. Bampton, "Scepticism in Therapeutics," Lancet, 1907, 1: 142-44, quotation on p. 142.
97. Marks, Progress of Experiment (n. 12), p. 40.
98. James G. Burrow, "The Prescription-Drug Policies of the American Medical Association in the Progressive Era," in Safeguarding the Public: Historical Aspects of Medicinal Drug Control, ed. John B. Blake (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), pp. 112-22.
99. William H. B. Aikins and F. C. Harrison, "Recent Observations on the Therapeutic Use of Radium," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1911, 36: 1-10, quotation on p. 5.
100. Ibid., p. 5.
101. Aikins and Harrison, "Radium in Gynaecological Conditions" (n. 60), p. 573.
102. Ibid.
103. Vogel and Rosenberg, Therapeutic Revolution (n. 7), p. 11.
104. Aikins, "Radium in Toxic Goitre" (n. 59).
105. Vogel and Rosenberg, Therapeutic Revolution (n. 7), pp. 14-20.
106. Bampton, "Scepticism" (n. 90).
107. Ibid., p. 142.
108. Third, "Some of the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Uses" (n. 34), p. 534.
109. William H. B. Aikins, "Some Results of Radium Treatment in Sarcoma," Can. Med. Assoc. J., 1923, 13: 654-56.
110. William H. B. Aikins, "The Use of Radium in the Treatment of the Leucemias and Hodgkin's Disease," Amer. J. Roentg., 1923, 10: 853-58, quotation on p. 855.
111. John McMaster, "The Uses and Limitations of the X-Rays in the Treatment of Diseases," Canada Lancet, 1903, 36: 708-11, quotation on p. 710.
112. William H. B. Aikins, "The Value of Radium in Curing Disease, in Prolonging Life, and in Alleviating Distressing Symptoms," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1919, 44: 229-37, quotation on p. 236. (This article also appeared in Amer. J. Roentg., 1919, 6: 439-44.)
113. William H. B. Aikins, "The Value of Radium in Curing Disease, in Prolonging Life, and in Alleviating Distressing Symptoms," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1919, 44: 229-37, quotation on p. 236. (This article also appeared in Amer. J. Roentg., 1919, 6: 439-44.)
114. Ibid., p. 237.
115. William H. B. Aikins, "The Radium Treatment of Malignant Disease of the Lip and Skin," Can. Practit. Med. Rev., 1917, 42: 142-48, p. 145.
116. Ibid.
117. Ibid., p. 147.
118. Pusey, "Roentgen Therapy" (n. 5), p. 1258.
119. Ibid.
120. McMaster, "Uses and Limitations" (n. 105), p. 709.
121. Ibid.
122. Aikins, "Value of Radium" (n. 106), p. 230.
123. Quoted in E. Gendreau, La fondation de L'Institut du Radium (Montreal, 1924), p. 13. Fonds P22, N. 193, University of Montréal Archives, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
124. Caroline C. S. Murphy, "The Control of Medical X-Rays, 1895-1917: Why Scientists as Paramedics, Not Medics as Parascientists," Soc. Hist. Med. Bull., 1987, 40: 67-68, quotation on p. 67.
125. Ibid., p. 67.
126. Third, "Some of the Diagnostic and Therapeutic Uses" (n. 34), p. 535.
127. Halifax Visiting Dispensary Minutes, 8 November 1922, MG 20 no. 179:3, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
128. Charles Hayter, "New Brunswick's Remarkable Dr. Roberts," Can. Med. Assoc. J., 1992, 146: 1637-39, quotation on p. 1638.
129. Dickson, "Some Uses" (n. 30), p. 73.
130. Edward Shorter, A Century of Radiology in Toronto (Toronto: Wall & Emerson, 1995), pp. 33-42.
131. The important discoveries in radiobiology of the mid-twentieth century are well outlined in Eric J. Hall, Radiobiology for the Radiologist 3d ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1988).