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- Title
K počátkům radonových lázní v Jáchymově v Cechách.
- Authors
TĚŠÍNSKÁ, EMILIE
- Abstract
The k. k. Kuranstalt für Radiumtherapie was officially opened in Joachimsthal (Jáchymov) in autumn 1911. Fritz Dautwitz, an assistant at the Second Medical Clinic of Vienna University, was appointed head of the institute and the spa chief medical officer. He had enthusiastically participated in the planning of the Joachimsthal state-owned spa, and managed to get radon inhalation and radium therapy accepted as the medical treatments there. The Institute became the first specialized radium therapy institute in the Bohemian Lands. This was closely connected with the production of radium in Joachimsthal, which began in 1908. Dautwitz developed special applicators for the external radium therapy (surface brachytherapy) known as Joachimsthal Radiumträger. Radium salt was applied to the applicators with a special paint on metal bases of various shapes. Dautwitz headed the Joachimsthal spa till 1918. After the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the declaration of an independent Czechoslovakia in autumn 1918, he returned to Austria where he continued working in radiology. He died in 1932, at the age of 55, of the harmful effects of working with ionizing radiation for years. The Radium Palace Hotel became the most luxurious place to stay for people visiting the Joachimsthal spa. Opened in 1912, it was built by the Terraingesellschaft für Erzgebirge, a joint-stock company on whose board sat members of the high aristocracy and Viennese big business. It was headed by Count Ernst Sylva-Tarrouca. In 1912 the number of visitors to the Joachimsthal spa increased to 1,898 people (compared to thirty people in 1906 and 228 in 1908). The Joachimsthal spa remained in operation during the First World War. In 1914, spa cures were also provided there to military personal receiving medical treatment in local hospitals of the Red Cross. Among the historical sources reflecting the history of the Joachimsthal radon spa there are reports by the spa doctors. Written for their superiors and partially published, they also document the refinement of the medical indications and methods used in the Joachimsthal spa. On one hand, the great interest in the radon spa - resulting from the hopes which sick people placed in new kinds of radiation, as well as from curiosity and profit-seeking advertising - did not give medical scientists much time to weigh properly the various views about the effects of radon baths. On the other hand, the great number of patients did provide scientists with an important set of statistics for the refinement of what had been learned on the subject. The nature of spa treatment, however, made long-term, systematic observation of the treatment results difficult. Connected with this was an often uncritical optimism, even among the doctors giving the treatment. Leopold Gottlieb, who set up radon spa in Joachimsthal, stated that from spring 1906 to autumn 1910 he had prescribed radioactive baths to a total of 750 patients. During this period, the group of medical indications expanded from the original three (Gicht, i.e. gout, rheumatism, neuralgia) to fifteen. The annual reports by F. Dautwitz on the operation of the state spa in Joachimsthal are highly detailed. They include statistics about spa guests, treatments, and medical results, including descriptions of representative cases. Some of that diagnoses of that time (for example Gicht and Tabes), however, are hard to interpret today. Nevertheless, a useful comparison of early and contemporary indications of the radon spa in Joachimsthal could be made on these historical sources.
- Subjects
JACHYMOV (Czech Republic); CZECH Republic; RADIOTHERAPY; THERAPEUTIC use of radon; HISTORY of medicine; HEALTH resorts; DAUTWITZ, Fritz; HISTORY
- Publication
History of Sciences & Technology / Dějiny Věd a Techniky, 2009, Vol 42, Issue 1, p29
- ISSN
0300-4414
- Publication type
Article