RE: eBay x-ray tubes & justified fears (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2007 12:00:52 +0000
From: Jeff Behary <jeff_behary@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: tesla@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: eBay x-ray tubes & justified fears (fwd)

Hey Bill,

You bring up some interesting arguments.  You know, with the shoe fitting 
X-Ray machines occasionally I hear of some that are --still-- in use in 
small towns, normally they are found by collectors accidentally while 
visiting small shoe shops.  How on earth could a shoesalesman still be alive 
after having and using one so long?  I mean, anyone who's married knows what 
their wife is like in a shoe store, and how long they can spend there.  And 
the use of this form of flouroscope is long enough to see the bones in your 
feet, wiggle your toes around, try to decide if you like them or not...a few 
minutes per pair can go by...(and this was using a Coolidge tube)... And 
don't forget the kids...  Mother would be looking in one flouroscope, the 
kid in the next, and the shoe salesman in the last.

Perhaps it is shoesalesman in particular that are immune to X-Rays.  There 
were tens of thousands of physicians that died from overexposure to X-Rays, 
mainly from flouroscopes...

About half of the authors on my website died within a decade of their books 
being published; the other half lived to be in their eighties.  I am sure 
genetics plays some part in it, as with any cancer.
Some have said that X-Rays made with Tesla Coils are safer than those made 
with induction coils or static machines.  I have heard horror stories in 
both cases about people receiving severe burns from exposures of 20 or 30 
minutes worth of X-Rays...which wasn't uncommon before the invention of the 
Coolidge tube.  Unlike a common sunburn, X-Ray burns could takes weeks or 
months to heal.

As for modern exposures to radiation, I was once propositioned to make a 
hidden flouroscope X-Ray machine for public buses in Israel specifically 
targeted for arab passengeners that "could" be terrorists hiding concealed 
weapons, etc.  The whole idea was completely unethical, and of course I 
wanted nothing to do with it.  In some cultures though, it seems that the 
ends justifies the means and I wouldn't be surprised if some areas of the 
world tolerated X-Rays more than us.  In third world countries they are 
still using X-Ray machines that were considered unsafe by our standards half 
a century ago.  What is worse, unsafe equipment or no equipment?

I think the term "radiation" in general scares the hell out of people.  
People don't understand it for a start.  One of the most common questions I 
get from people who visit the museum is if the X-Ray tubes themselves (just 
sitting on the shelves) are giving off radiation.  Yet the same people have 
no worries about eating foods laced with preservatives and artificial 
sweetners, etc - or visiting a tanning salon, which to me all seems a lot 
worse than firing up a Crookes tube. . .

Seriously though, I think us collectors and experimenters that deal with 
X-Rays and radiations in general should take [better] care when doing so.  
Today we are susceptible to many things that cause cancer, and playing with 
X-Ray tubes carelessly doesn't help matters any.

Jeff Behary, c/o
The Turn Of The Century Electrotherapy Museum
http://www.electrotherapymuseum.com

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