Possibly before long we shall be able to determine also the presence or absence of solid foreign bodies in the larynx or windpipe.  Every now and then, patients, especially children, get into the windpipe jack-stones, small tin toys, nails, pins, needles, etc., foreign bodies which may menace life very seriously.  To locate them exactly is very difficult.  The X rays may here be a great help.  An attempt has been made by Rowland and Waggett. to skiagraph such foreign bodies, with encouraging results.  Improvements in our methods will, I think, undoubtedly lead to a favorable use of the method in these instances.  Beans, peas, wooden toys, and similar foreign bodies, being easily permeable to the rays, will not probably be discovered.

If our methods improve so that we can skiagraph through the entire body, it will be very possible to determine the presence and location of foreign bodies in the stomach and intestines.  A large number of cases are on record in which plates with artificial teeth, knives, forks, coins, and other such bodies have been swallowed; and the surgeon is often doubtful, especially if they are small, whether they have remained in the stomach, or have passed into the intestines, or entirely escaped from the body.  In these cases, too, a caution should be uttered as to the occasional inadvisability of operating, even should they be located, for if small they will probably escape without doing any harm.  But it may be possible to look at them from day to day and determine whether or not they are passing safely through the intestinal canal, or have been arrested, at any point, and, therefore, whether the surgeon should interfere.  The man who had swallowed a fork which remained in his stomach (l’homme a la fourchette, as he was dubbed in Paris) was a noted patient, and would have proved an excellent subject for a skiagraph, had the method then existed.

As sunlight is known to be the foe of bacteria, the hope has been expressed that the new rays might be a means of destroying the microbes of consumption and other diseases in the living body.  Delepine, Park, and others have investigated this with a good deal of care.  A dozen different varieties of bacteria have been exposed to the Roentgen rays for over an hour, but cultures made from the tubes after this exposure have shown not only that they were not destroyed, but possibly they were more vigorous than before.

The facts above stated seem to warrant the following conclusions as to the present value of the method: 

First.—­That deformities, injuries, and diseases of bone can be readily and accurately diagnosticated by the Roentgen rays; but that the method at present is limited in its use to the thinner parts of the body, especially to the hands, forearms, and feet.

Second.—­That foreign bodies which are opaque to the rays, such as needles, bullets, and glass, can be accurately located and their removal facilitated by this means; but that a zeal born of a new knowledge almost romantic in its character, should not lead us to do harm by attempting the indiscriminate removal of every such foreign body. Non nocere (to do no harm) is the first lesson a surgeon learns.