NEW / OLD FROM THE VINTAGRAPH VAULTS >> THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

This Won’t Hurt a Bit: 1942

This Won’t Hurt a Bit: 1942

A baby is restrained for an X-ray at Provident Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. Photo by Jack Delano, March, 1942. View full image.

X ray safety

My folks have always wondered if the time my brother spent at my grandma's place of work (a shoe store) playing with the fluoroscope to see his foot bones contributed to his death from leukemia in his childhood.

X-Rays

My kid had to have a chest x-ray a few months ago and it didn't look much different than this!

found, with no linkback

but lots of interesting comments...

http://fantasygoat.livejournal.com/94832.html

yikes

I forget sometimes how dangerous early X-Ray technology was, before we knew to protect patients and doctors from the radiation. My great uncle was one of the early pioneers of the technology, and as a consequence, never was able to have children and died rather young. Eesh.

This is a fascinating picture, though.

X-rays

Our family dentist in the 50's and early 60's first lost a thumb, then later his life to cancer caused by X-rays in the early use of that in dentistry.

And I can remember seeing my foot bones in the fluoroscopes they used to have in shoe stores. My family spent the summer in Los Alamos, New Mexico in 1955 and my mother used to tell how the local shoe stores had been told by scientists at Los Alamos Labs to pull the plug on those fluoroscopes!

Fluoroscope?

Is this an X-ray machine or a fluoroscope? Any radiologists out there?

X-rays

A generation or two ago, cancer in the forefinger was common in dentists, from holding the film in the patient's mouth while taking X-rays.

My source: a 75-year-old friend whose father was a dentist who developed cancer in his finger.

The kid looks calm, but not at all trusting.

The child

What amazes me is the child is so calm. Most children are screaming their heads off by now ;o)

X-ray

yeah i'm thinking ... are they just posing for the photoshoot or is that how they remain during the radiation release? ! !

Health Care Workers

In those "early" days of x-ray, it's easy to see why the life span of such health care workers was probably shorter than those not working with x-rays.

Post new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
3 + 4 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
 
"OLD PICTURES, BETTER THAN NEW"
Syndicate content  Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago. Contact us | Privacy policy | Site © 2008 shorpy.com