IV. THE DEADLY TUBE
“For Heaven’s sake, Gregory, what is the matter?” asked Craig Kennedy as a tall, nervous man stalked into our apartment one evening. “Jameson, shake hands with Dr. Gregory. What’s the matter, Doctor? Surely your X-ray work hasn’t knocked you out like this?”
The doctor shook hands with me mechanically. His hand was icy. “The blow has fallen,” he exclaimed, as he sank limply into a chair and tossed an evening paper over to Kennedy.
In red ink on the first page, in the little square headed “Latest News,” Kennedy read the caption, “Society Woman Crippled for Life by X-Ray Treatment.”
“A terrible tragedy was revealed in the suit begun today,” continued the article, “by Mrs. Huntington Close against Dr. James Gregory, an X-ray specialist with offices at Madison Avenue, to recover damages for injuries which Mrs. Close alleges she received while under his care. Several months ago she began a course of X-ray treatment to remove a birthmark on her neck. In her complaint Mrs. Close alleges that Dr. Gregory has carelessly caused X-ray dermatitis, a skin disease of cancerous nature, and that she has also been rendered a nervous wreck through the effects of the rays. Simultaneously with filing the suit she left home and entered a private hospital. Mrs. Close is one of the most popular hostesses in the smart set, and her loss will be keenly felt.”
“What am I to do, Kennedy?” asked the doctor imploringly. “You remember I told you the other day about this case—that there was something queer about it, that after a few treatments I was afraid to carry on any more and refused to do so? She really has dermatitis and nervous prostration, exactly as she alleges in her complaint. But, before Heaven, Kennedy, I can’t see how she could possibly have been so affected by the few treatments I gave her. And tonight, just as I was leaving the office, I received a telephone call from her husband’s attorney, Lawrence, very kindly informing me that the case would be pushed to the limit. I tell you, it looks black for me.”
“What can they do?”
“Do? Do you suppose any jury is going to take enough expert testimony to outweigh the tragedy of a beautiful woman? Do? Why, they can ruin me, even if I get a verdict of acquittal. They can leave me with a reputation for carelessness that no mere court decision can ever overcome.”
“Gregory, you can rely on me,” said Kennedy. “Anything I can do to help you I will gladly do. Jameson and I were on the point of going out to dinner. Join us, and after that we will go down to your office and talk things over.”
“You are really too kind,” murmured the doctor. The air of relief that was written on his face was pathetically eloquent.
“Now not a word about the case till we have had dinner,” commanded Craig. “I see very plainly that you have been worrying about the blow for a long time. Well, it has fallen. The neat thing to do is to look over the situation and see where we stand.”
Dinner over, we rode down-town in the subway, and Gregory ushered us into an office-building on Madison Avenue, where he had a very handsome suite of several rooms. We sat own in his waiting-room to discuss the affair.
“It is indeed a very tragic case,” began Kennedy, “almost more tragic than if the victim had been killed outright. Mrs. Huntington Close is—or rather I suppose I should say was—one of the famous beauties of the city. From what the paper says, her beauty has been hopelessly ruined by this dermatitis, which, I understand, Doctor, is practically incurable.”
Dr. Gregory nodded, and I could not help following his eyes as he looked at his own rough and scarred hands.
“Also,” continued Craig, with his eyes half closed and his fingertips together, as if, he were taking a mental inventory of the facts in the case, “her nerves are so shattered that she will be years in recovering, if she ever recovers.”
“Yes,” said the doctor simply. “I myself, for instance, am subject to the most unexpected attacks of neuritis. But, of course, I am under the influence of the rays fifty or sixty times a day, while she had only a few treatments at intervals of many days.”
“Now, on the other hand,” resumed Craig, “I know you, Gregory, very well. Only the other day, before any of this came out, you told me the whole story with your fears as to the outcome. I know that that lawyer of Close’s has been keeping this thing hanging over your head for a long time. And I also know that you are one of the most careful X-ray operators in the city. If this suit goes against you, one of the most brilliant men of science in America will be ruined. Now, having said this much, let me ask you to describe just exactly what treatments you gave Mrs. Close.”
The doctor led us into his X-ray room adjoining. A number of X-ray tubes were neatly put away in a great glass case, and at one end of the room was an operating-table with an X-ray apparatus suspended over it. A glance at the room showed that Kennedy’s praise was not exaggerated.
“How many treatments did you give Mrs. Close?” asked Kennedy.
“Not over a dozen, I should say;” replied Gregory. “I have a record of them and the dates, which I will give you presently. Certainly they were not numerous enough or frequent enough to have caused a dermatitis such as she has. Besides, look here. I have an apparatus which, for safety to the patient, has few equals in the country. This big lead-glass bowl, which is placed over my X-ray tube when in use, cuts off the rays at every point except exactly where they are needed.”
He switched on the electric current, and the apparatus began to sputter. The pungent odour of ozone from the electric discharge filled the room. Through the lead-glass bowl I could see the X-ray tube inside suffused with its peculiar, yellowish-green light, divided into two hemispheres of different shades. That, I knew, was the cathode ray, not the X-ray, for the X-ray itself, which streams outside the tube, is invisible to the human eye. The doctor placed in our hands a couple of fluoroscopes, an apparatus by which X-rays can be detected. It consists simply of a closed box with an opening to which the eyes are placed. The opposite end of the box is a piece of board coated with a salt such as platino-barium cyanide. When the X-ray strikes this salt it makes it glow, or fluoresce, and objects held between the X-ray tube and the fluoroscope cast shadows according to the density of the parts which the X-rays penetrate.
With the lead-glass bowl removed, the X-ray tube sent forth its wonderful invisible radiation and made the back of the fluoroscope glow with light. I could see the bones of my fingers as I held them up between the X-ray tube and the fluoroscope. But with the lead-glass bowl in position over the tube, the fluoroscope was simply a black box into which I looked and saw nothing. So very little of the radiation escaped from the bowl that it was negligible—except at one point where there was an opening in the bottom of the bowl to allow the rays to pass freely through exactly on the spot on the patient where they were to be used.
“The dermatitis, they say, has appeared all over her body, particularly on her head and shoulders,” added Dr. Gregory. “Now I have shown you my apparatus to impress on you how really impossible it would have been for her to contract it from her treatments here. I’ve made thousands of exposures with never an X-ray burn before—except to myself. As for myself, I’m as careful as I can be, but you can see I am under the rays very often, while the patient is only under them once in a while.”
To illustrate his care he pointed out to us a cabinet directly back of the operating-table, lined with thick sheets of lead. From this cabinet he conducted most of his treatments as far as possible. A little peep-hole enabled him to see the patient and the X-ray apparatus, while an arrangement of mirrors and a fluorescent screen enabled him to see exactly what the X-rays were disclosing, without his leaving the lead-lined cabinet.
“I can think of no more perfect protection for either patient or operator,” said Kennedy admiringly. “By the way, did Mrs. Close come alone?”
“No, the first time Mr. Close came with her. After that, she came with her French maid.”
The next day we paid a visit to Mrs. Close herself at the private hospital. Kennedy had been casting about in his mind for an excuse to see her, and