The tragedy of the ARRS founders.

Abstract

Undoubtedly we will hear over and oven again as the centennial approaches how Dr. John Rudis-Jicinsky of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, wrote in 1 899 to Dr. Heban Robarts in St. Louis to suggest the formation of a society of physicians and others interested in the medical development of the newly discovered roentgen nay [1]. Dr. Hebar Robarts was a physician in St. Louis who early on became interested in the new nays and was enterprising enough to publish the first American journal devoted entirely to the X-ray and its allied sciences, The American X-Ray Journal (1897). Two years after Robarts founded his journal, his subscription list became the mailing list for the call to organize the Roentgen Society of the United States, later named the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS). As president of the organizing meeting and of the first regular meeting, and as editor of his journal, which the new society chose as its official organ, Robarts struggled to keep both the society and the journal free of the taint of electnologists,phototherapists, and similar practitioners who had flocked to the new organization [2]. However, because the Roentgen Society of the United States made no distinction between the quality or goals of its new members and those of the original subscribers, the electrologists and manufacturers were able to take an aggressive stance in dissuading some of the traditional physicians, who were more cautious in both outlook and practice, from finding an appropriate place for the new technology. Dr. Robarts became discouraged and eventually gave up his journal to these marginal practitioners. Indeed, the journal eventually became the electrologists’ organ and lost its identity as a reputable scientific publication. By 1905, Robarts’ name was no longer on the society roster. In 1898, Robarts turned his attention to radium, and he spent the rest of his life working in the field of radium therapy with the same energy and productivity he had earlier devoted to the promotion of the X-ray. In discussing the mantyns to the X-ray, Percy Brown gives a moving description of Robarts’ death from radium-related malignant disease [3]. Although Dr. Robarts deserved a better fate during his life, the fate of Dr. John Rudis-Jicinsky, who first suggested the organization of a society, was considerably more tragic. Dr. Rudis-Jicinsky started experimenting with X-rays as early as 1896 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and became captivated by the new technology, Itwas he who had hand-written the 40 invitationsto prospective members for the firstmeeting in Dr. Robarts’ officeand wrote 2000 letters for the second meeting. He and Dr. Robarts designed the society’s original constitution. He served for 3 years as the society’s first secretary-treasurer while contributing papers on X-ray therapy for tuberculosis as well as malignant disease. In 1902, atthe third meeting of the ARRS, one of the papers presented was devoid of scientific data and served as a commercial for the speaker. The meeting broke up amid catcalls from the audience, and on the following day Rudis-Jicinsky was removed as secretary, since he had arranged the program and was held responsible for inviting this quasicharlatan [4]. Despite this ignominy, Rudis-Jicinsky continued as an active member, contributing, among others, a paper on the potential use of Xnays in courts of law. Nevertheless, in 1911 Rudis-Jicinsky was expelled from the society he had co-founded on the necommendation of the board of censors. This group reported that “incontrovertible evidence has been submitted that Dr. J. Rudis-Jicinsky has been found guilty of gross intentional fraud, practiced on a patient, the same consisting of radiograms of dry bones and anatomical specimens instead of the real radiograms. The prints submitted as evidence and given to the patient as true roentgen pictures of himself are those of portions of the skeleton the bones of which had been fractuned artificially and the skeleton that of a person of entirely different size and stature and sex. The prints do not represent what they are stated to be” [5]. There is no further information or discussion and no further mention ever again of Dr. RudisJicinsky in the society’s official papers. Six years later, writing in the New York Medical Journal, Rudis-Jicinsky relates his experiences as a radiologist in Senbia in World War I [6]. He discusses fractures, foreign bodies, bullet source identification, and even the use of X-rays for sterilizing infected wounds. Dr. Rudis-Jicinsky died in 1921 in Chicago, preceding Dr. Robarts in death by 1 year.