Article ID: CBB001320563

More Than Meets the Eye: Revealing the Therapeutic Potential of “Light”, 1896--1910 (2013)

unapi

The X-ray is frequently presented as a classic case of technological innovation in medicine. Histories have presented the enthusiastic adoption and use of the new matter-penetrating radiation by the medical community as driven by diagnostic possibilities. However, this view obscures the complete story. Considering X-rays as one component of a technological configuration developed for `light' treatment of a specific disease, this article expands our understanding of the reception and adoption of X-rays, and medical technologies in general. The article focuses on the relationship between X-rays and another much less well known, but Nobel Prize-winning light therapy: the Finsen Lamp. By viewing these two simultaneously competing and complementary technologies through the lens of a specific skin disease---lupus vulgaris---I show that there was much more to early X-rays than diagnosis and that they were far from the only, or even the most useful, novel medical technology at the time.

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001320563/

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Authors & Contributors
Womack, Jeffrey
Wexler, Anna
Woloshyn, Tania Anne
Weiner, M.-F.
Jamieson, A K
Cohen, Sara Jo
Concepts
Therapeutic practice; therapy; treatment
Medicine
Electrotherapy; radiotherapy
Medicine and technology, relationships
X-rays
Medical technology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
United States
France
Great Britain
South Asia
New Zealand
Japan
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