Annual report of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital : 1929.

  • Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.
Date:
1929
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital : 1929. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    44/256 (page 38)
    Report of the Roentgenologist Fashions in medicine change as well as fashions in clothes, and the medical fashion of the present seems to be the X-ray. Indeed, a close similarity exists when it is discovered that some prospective patients actually go bargain hunting to find where the elusive gall blad¬ der can be examined at the lowest rate per square inch of celluloid. These patients, as do many others, think that the examination is purely mechanical ; that if they pose properly the picture will be clear and the answer plainly written on the film in unequivocal terms. Little do they realize that we deal only with shadows, and that even these shadows are subject to countless arti¬ ficial variations as well as the natural variations due to disease or injury. Our bargain-hunting public, how¬ ever, has been educated to expect an X-ray, and an X-ray they must have no matter what the complaint. More than once this past year we have noted the cryp¬ tic phrases on the requisition: ‘‘Physical entirely negative. X-ray to dispel patient’s fears.” At that, the patient is occasionally right and the doctor is con¬ founded. What joy to tell the stubborn doctor, “I knew I had a fracture.” Even though the fracture be but the length of a centimeter, it is worth the price of three X-rays. In spite of the errors and artefacts which may creep into our nebulous shadows, and into the more impor¬ tant interpretation of these shadows as terms of patho¬ logical processes, we seem to have the confidence of the public, at times it seems to an unwarranted extent. It behooves us, therefore, not to betray that confidence, but rather to take stock and see to what extent it is