Light in a Kidney

A few investigators are trying to cure tuberculosis by introducing ultraviolet light to infected body cavities. The artificial sunlight might kill the germs and heal the tissues if it could shine on them. A problem has been how to build a light producer small enough and cool enough to get into the cavities. Last year Drs. John Roberts Caulk & Frank Henry Ewerhardt of Washington University, St. Louis, successfully entered a tuberculous bladder, alleviated it with irradiation. They used a cold quartz generator of ultraviolet light.

Last week Dr. Samuel Lubash of Manhattan announced* another kind of internal sun-lamp wherewith he can penetrate the bladder and ureter into the kidney and treat tuberculosis anywhere along the drainage system,

Dr. Lubash, who lectures on urology at Flower Hospital Medical School, had a mercury-vapor quartz bulb made a little larger than a match head. This he attached to a copper wire covered by a silk-wound ureteral catheter and attachable to a high frequency apparatus. Last week was too early to show cures in his work, but he had reason to believe that healing light would work as well in a kidney as anywhere else.

*In American Journal of Surgery.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.