Thomas Alva Edison's laboratory and factory in West Orange, New Jersey, was an amazing place to be in the late 19th century. Its machines could produce anything from locomotive engines to ladies' watches, and when the machines weren't running, Edison's "troublemakers"-researchers, chemists, and technological wizards from as far away as Europe-might be found in the inventor's Black Maria film studio. Watch Native Americans dance in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, or hear classical musicians record on Edison's wax cylinder phonograph.
of relevance A few months after the discovery, X-rays were used in the war, and lured by the lure of the future, the dregs worked happily for 90 hours. But they also faced the dangers of unknown chemicals, acids, electricity and light. No one knew this better than Edison Muck Clarence Madison Daly, who unwittingly gave his life to help develop one of the most important innovations in the history of medical diagnosis. When it became obvious what Daly was doing to himself in the name of research, Edison abandoned the invention. "Don't mention X-rays to me," he said. "I'm afraid of them."Born in 1865, Daley grew up in Woodbridge, N.J., in a family of glassblowers employed by the Edison Lamp Factory in nearby Harrison At 17, he enlisted in the Army, and after six years of service, he returned home to work at the side of his father and three brothers At 24, he was transferred to the West Orange Laboratory, where he would assist in Edison's experiments with incandescent light.
It was one of the first X-rays that Wilhelm Roentgen did on his wife, Anna Bertha Ludwig, wearing a wedding ring, in 1895. (***)In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen experimented with inflatable vacuum tubes and electricity; that November, he observed a green fluorescent light coming from a tube wrapped in thick black paper. A week later, Roentgen took an X-ray photograph of his wife's hand, revealing the finger bones and a spherical wedding ring. The photo quickly went viral and dazzled the world.
Edison received word of the discovery and immediately set about experimenting with his own fluorescent lamps. He was known for his background with incandescent lamps, in which an electric current passes through a filament, causing it to heat up and glow, but Edison took a new interest in the chemical reactions and gases in the roentgen fluorescent tubes and in his discovery of X-rays. Equally fascinating, Clarence Daly took to the work with gusto, doing countless tests, placing his hand between a fluoroscope (a cardboard viewing tube coated with fluorescent metal salts) and the X-ray tube, unwittingly exposing himself to toxic radiation for hours on end.
In May 1896, Edison, along with Daly, went to the National Electric Light Association exhibit in New York City to demonstrate his fluorescent mirror. Hundreds of people lined up for the chance to stand in front of the fluoroscope and then enter the viewing area to see their own skeletons. Anyone who saw the display could immediately see the potential medical benefits.
Dally returned to Edison's X-ray room in West Orange and continued to test, refine, and experiment over the next few years. By 1900, he began to show lesions and degenerative skin conditions on his hands and face. His hair began to fall out, followed by his eyebrows and eyelashes. Soon his face was full of wrinkles and his left hand was particularly swollen and painful. Like a devoted committed science vandal, Daly found what he thought was the solution to preventing further damage to his left hand: he began to replace it with his right hand. The results were probably predictable. At night, he slept with both hands in water to alleviate the burns. Like many researchers at the time, Daly thought he would heal with rest and away from the catheter." In September 1901, Daly was asked to travel to Buffalo, N.Y., on a matter of national importance. One of Edison's X-ray machines on display at the Pan-American Exposition might be needed. President William McKinley was about to make a speech at the exposition when a no ****ist named Leon Zorgos flew at him, a pistol concealed in a handkerchief, and fired twice,
Daly and a colleague arrived in Buffalo and quickly set to work installing the X-ray machine in the Millburn House, where McKinley was staying while the President underwent an operation in the Exposition Hospital One of the bullets just grazed McKinley. was found in his clothing, but the other was lodged in his abdomen. The surgeon couldn't find it, but McKinley's doctor thought the president was too unstable to x-ray him. Daley waited for McKinley to get better so he could direct the surgeons to the hidden bullet, but that day never came: McKinley died a week after being shot. Daly returned to New Jersey.
By the next year, the pain in Daley's hands became so unbearable that some people said they looked like they had been burned. Daley had several skin grafts on his left leg, but the damage remained. When his left arm showed signs of cancer, Daly agreed to have it amputated below the shoulder.
Seven months later, he began having similar problems with his right hand; surgeons removed four fingers. When Daly, who had a wife and two sons, could no longer work, Edison left him on the payroll and promised to take care of him for the rest of his life. Edison ended his experiments with roentgen rays. Edison would tell a reporter from the New York World, "I stopped experimenting with them two years ago when I was about to lose my sight, and my assistant Daly almost lost the use of his arms." . "I'm also afraid of radium and polonium, I don't want to mix with them."
Thomas Edison gave up X-rays, fearing they were too dangerous. (***)When an ophthalmologist told him that his "eyes had more than a foot of focus," Edison said he told Dally that "there was danger in continuing to use the test tube." He added, "The only thing that saved my sight was my use of a very weak test tube, and when Dally insisted on using the strongest weapon he could find,
Dally's condition continued to deteriorate, and in 1903, doctors removed his right arm. By 1904, his 39-year-old body was ravaged by metastatic skin cancer, and after eight years of experimenting with radiation, Daly died. But his tragic example eventually led to a deeper understanding of radiology.
For his part, Edison was happy to leave those advances to others. "I don't want to know more about X-rays," he said at the time. "In the hands of an experienced operator they are an invaluable aid to surgery, and they can be hidden from view as well as locating objects, as is almost certain in an appendicitis operation, for example. But they are dangerous and deadly in the hands of the inexperienced, or even in the hands of a person who constantly uses them for experiments, "a fact for which two good object lessons can be found in the orange."
Sourced from
Article, "Edison Fears Potential Danger of X-rays," New York World, August 3, 1903.October 4, 1904, *** "C.M. Daly is a Martyr for Science. " . "Clarence Daly: American Pioneer," by Raymond A. Gagliardi, American Journal of Radiology, November 1991, Vol. 157, No. 5, p. 922. "Radiation-Induced Meningiomas" by Felix Umansky, M.D., Yigal Shoshan, M.D., Guy Rosenthal, M.D., Shifra Fraifield, M.B.A., Sergey Spektor, M.D.. Neurosurgery Spotlight, American Association of Neurological Surgeons, June 26, 2008 "American Martyrs of Radiology : Clarence Madison Daly (1865-1904)" by Percy Brown, American Radiology, 1995. "This Day in Science and Technology: 1895 November 8: Roentgen Stumbles on X-rays," by Tony Long, Wired, November 8, 2010