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Show Lecturer gives cancer history "To paraphrase Mark Antony, "I've come here not to praise radiation, radi-ation, but neither should it be buried ... at least at this point," said Dr. R. J. Stewart of the Medical Medi-cal Center's Radiology Dept. Dr. Stewart presented his lecture, "Therapeutic Radiation," to a packed pack-ed audience, Friday at noon in the N. Physics Bldg. The lecture began with a short - history of radiation, from its discovery dis-covery in 1896 to its subsequent disasterous effects on the unwary scientist's health. "Historically," says Dr. Stewart, "the incidents of cancer among radiologists has declined, de-clined, as protective measures against exposure become more sophisticated." According to Dr. Stewart, the two main methods used in curing cancer can-cer are surgery and radiation therapy. Both methods manage to cure an equal number of cancer victims and well over 60 per cent of cancer patients receive radiation treatment sometime during dis-sease. dis-sease. The combined success rale of surgery and radiation treatment treat-ment is now one out of three patients pa-tients cured. In 1937 the rate was one out of five, with surgery being the main method of treatment. The last half of Dr. Stewart's lecture lec-ture concerned itself with the mechanics me-chanics of administering radiation treatment." Dr. Stewart spent most of the time with X-ray beams like Cobalt 60, and their effects and repercussions. repercus-sions. The doctor said that before treatment can begin, the radio'ogist must know the precise extent and potential extent of the cancer to be treated. When this has been established, a safety zone of healthy tissue around the cancerous cancer-ous area, as well as tissue interspaced inter-spaced with the cancer, must "necessarily" become a target lor the radiation beam. "As for healthy tissue in the rest of the patient's body." says Dr. Stewart, "the higher the radiation radia-tion beam's voltage, the less energy is lost enroute to the malignant tissue." |