The Comeback Treatment

Everything new is old again. Yeah – I meant to flip the script. 

In 1895, three years after X-rays were discovered, Dr. Nikolai Sokolow published the first series using low dose radiation therapy to treat arthritis, in this case four children with juvenile arthritis. All four children experienced pain relief and improved mobility. In 1933, German researcher Heinz von Pannewitz published the results of his research, establishing the first standardized approach to treating arthritis with radiation. The treatment became commonplace in the United States until the 1980s, when better drugs for controlling pain became widely available, along with growing anxiety about radiation-induced secondary cancers.