Abstract
A MEDICAL congress, especially in view of the wide development of specialism, rarely if ever helps to bring to light a new discovery or to promote a new theory, or at least to work out an application in practice of some basic theoretic facts. It has, however, the importance of grouping together men who work on widely different fines and are enabled to exchange ideas in a favourable atmosphere. In so far the Brighton meeting of the British Medical Association was undoubtedly very successful. We had, for example, a very interesting address by Prof. C. G. Barkla, F.R.S., on the secondary X-ray radiations in medicine, which, being delivered by a prominent physicist, introduced an element of exact science into empiricism of therapeutic applications. Prof. Barkla gave a detailed description of the scattered^ fluorescent, and corpuscular rays. He reminded his audience that all chemical, therapeutic, and physical action attributed to X-rays was due to the secondary radiation of negative electrons. He pointed out that in order to produce a definite effect in an organ there must be a transformation of the energy of Röntgen radiation into energy of corpuscular radiation, as well as an absorption of the latter by the respective organ.
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The Brighton Meeting of the British Medical Association . Nature 91, 593 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/091593a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/091593a0