Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/907

 X-Rays and the Law

��X-RAY pictures have been used as evidence in law suits brought for personal injuries in order to show the injured parts clearly. To mark the negative for identification, lead letters (opaque to X-Rays) have been used, ar- ranged at one

��side of the part photo- graphed. This method did not eliminate the possibil- ity of fraud, and hence the photographs so marked were not al- ways accept- able to the courts. There was no way of proving that the name and date on the picture were not forgeries. As a result some fifteen States have passed laws which prohibit the courts from receiving an X-Ray pho- tograph as evidence un- less the plate or card on

��B'klyn-

ccldent:- 1/4/16

��:-pl«r #47 B.Y. atlO P.M.

��y«d by:- Knery ft Co. ,

e of Injury:- Praeture of the

��ll'i lt«t*c&rpal bone.

of »h«n plate taien:- 1/

��To be used as evidence in an accident case, an X-Ray

photograph must have a label which could not possibly

have been forged

��which the name, address, date and re- marks are written is placed either under or over the parts injured. Suppose the bones of a hand are broken and the fracture is to be photographed. It will be necessary under the law in question, to place a label directly on or under the injured part in order to make the photograph acceptable to the court. The lead letters heretofore used cannot be arranged in this manner; they hide the fracture and thus vitiate the eviden- tial value of the photograph.

Dr. Aurelius De Yoanna, Brooklyn,

��New York, has invented and patented a method of authenticating X-Ray plates which will allow him to mark the injured part and arrange a label directly on or beneath the injured part. It is impossible to "fake" the photograph.

After the photograph has been tak- en, the frac- ture is dis- tinctly seen through the label. Thus the method overcomes the objection to the lead letters here- tofore em- ployed, and at the same time the vari- ousStatelaws are obeyed.

The label is so pliable that it may be used on curved parts of the body and in con- nection with celluloid films f ) r plates. When used with a cellu- loid plate the label may be placed on the

���plate or film or on the injured part and the X-Ray taken in the usual manner. The label itself is made of lead, tin- foil, or any other material opaque to X-Rays, so that when written on by a pencil, pen, stylus, typewriter or other device the writing will become trans- parent to the X-Rays. Hence, the written or printed matter on the label may be easily read, and the fracture beneath the label carefully studied. This laljel complies with the law and at the same time does not injure in any way the finished photograph.

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