Elimination of The Dark Room in Photography, Especially as Applied to Roentgenology

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One becomes so accustomed to the disadvantages of dark rooms that they do not attract much attention, yet it is a fact that the actual necessity for such dark rooms, together with the necessary equipment, has deterred many medical men and dentists from installing X-ray apparatus. The dark room itself may have to be especially built or designed and this in itself implies added cost or additional rent. To avoid this, one frequently finds all sorts of places pressed into service as dark rooms, such as cupboards, cellars, attics, pantries, bathrooms, perhaps unsanitary and dirty and otherwise objectionable. Such makeshifts can be seen in every city and are extremely common in the country. Rendering the dark room light-proof is frequently an expensive item, necessitating special blinds and curtains, ordinary window blinds being, of course, quite inadequate. Crevices, key-holes, ventilators, and other sources of light must be adequately covered, and to make the room light-proof there may be interference with proper ventilation. Of course, inadequate exclusion of light results in fogged films. To prevent accidental entry of light it is usual to lock the door during developing operations; in busy laboratories, expensive labyrinthine or revolving doors are fitted. As a rule, no outside person can gain admission to the dark room during the processes of developing or changing films, and thus it may be particularly inconvenient when stores, records, and other items are kept in the room. It very rarely happens that owners are proud of the appearance of their dark rooms. The heterogeneous collection of tanks, bottles of chemicals, fixed cupboards, film hangers, and various other items does not make an attractive sight, whilst much of the dark room equipment is fixed and immovable, involving considerable expense if one is required to move to another location. The menace to health of dark room operators is quite considerable owing to unhealthy surroundings, exclusion of light, and often inadequate ventilation. Rarely are special exhaust fans fitted as they involve additional expense, whilst cold floors and inadequate artificial heating also constitute disadvantages. Special acid-resisting flooring without any floor cloth is particularly cold in wintertime. It is, of course, quite impracticable to utilize electric radiators or the like. Unless an expensive drying mechanism is installed, it takes many hours, especially in cold weather, for films to dry, and often films developed one day are not dry until the next. All the various disadvantages just described have been overcome, and an apparatus has been built to eliminate the disabilities enumerated. A description of one model will serve as a type. The various parts may be noted in the illustration (Fig. 1). The outside appearance shows the panels in the center above to consist of two doors, hinged on either side. On the right is the detachable drying chamber.