Roentgen Rays Against Cancer’ 
By Joun G. Trump, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology 
[With 6 plates] 
The disease to which Hippocrates 
in the fourth century B. C. applied the 
enigmatic and disquieting name of 
“cancer” is now for the first time 
marked for open battle by the com- 
bined forces of science, medicine, and 
enlightened public opinion. Cancer 
has made a vivid and fearful impres- 
sion upon the human mind since 
antiquity. The earliest account of 
some of its clinical symptoms is re- 
corded in an Egyptian papyrus of the 
fifteenth century B. C. Many ob- 
servations of its nature had been made 
by the end of the Hippocratian era, 
and further accurate classification of 
the disease was accomplished in A. D. 
150 by Galen, whose principles per- 
sisted until the nineteenth ceatury. 
Today the ultimate nature and causes 
of cancer are still largely a riddle, but 
knowledge of its almost infinite mani- 
festations and factors affecting them is 
steadily advancing. While cancer the 
disease is growing in social importance, 
the successes in cancer research and 
therapy have been many and can now 
occasionally offer hope of complete 
clinical cure. In this battle against 
the most mysterious and baffling of 
human diseases, the armamentarium 
of humanity includes the techniques 
of the physicist, chemist, geneticist, 
biologist, bacteriologist, as well as the 
internist, surgeon, and_ radiologist. 
1 Reprinted by permission from The 
Technology Review, vol. 50, No. 2, Decem- 
ber 1947, edited at the Massachusetts Insti- 
tute of Technology. ; 
Most recently, because of the critical 
need for early diagnosis and enlightened 
response, the general public is being 
awakened to its necessary role in this 
developing conflict. 
Among the civilized countries of the 
world, cancer is now definitely second 
only to the diseases of the heart as a 
cause of death. In the United States 
about 175,000 people die annually of 
this disease. More than 1 in 10, 
about equally divided between men 
and women, are destined to die of 
cancer. The apparent rise through 
the years in the incidence of this 
disease is undoubtedly due to im- 
proved diagnosis and to the increasing 
age of populations, for cancer pre- 
ferentially strikes those of middle and 
advanced age, although certain types, 
such as embryonal tumors, are more 
common in early life. Several hundred 
varieties of malignant tumors are now 
recognized, and their characteristic 
development has been the subject of 
clinical observation for many years. 
More important, fundamental proc- 
esses In the origin of cancer and its 
control are the subject of intensive 
research. The genetic factor in the 
incidence of cancer has been studied in 
both men and animals, as well as the 
carcinogenic effect of mechanical irri- 
tation, of certain chemical compounds, 
of bacteria, of viruses, and of exposure 
to radiation. The study of transplant- 
able tumors and the factors contribut- 
ing to the development of the graft or 
the maintenance of immunity, the 
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