(Jan. 03, 2011) X-rays don’t just diagnose, they cure, says peer-reviewed research from the 1940s.

Before Christmas, I reviewed a 70-year-old medical text that described near-miraculous results from treating infections with radiation. My review, Saving life and limb, relayed how use of ordinary X-ray equipment was saving thousands of lives of infected patients in the 1930s and 1940s. These health results, documented in numerous peer-reviewed medical journals of the day, outperformed those achieved by today’s antibiotics — today’s treatments often lead to death or amputations.

This remarkable long-forgotten book, Roentgen Treatment of Infections, was brought to my attention by Jerry Cuttler, a nuclear scientist interested in the field. Dr. Cuttler two years earlier found a copy of this book and reviewed it himself for the Canadian Nuclear Society, with which he has long been associated. His review, which I commend to you, appears here.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and the author of The Deniers.