The value of radiotherapy in the treatment of many acute, subacute and chronic inflammatory processes is not as well known as it deserves to be. This is apparently because the sound experimental basis and the mass of clinical and other evidence on which it rests have not been considered, and because many questionable or wholly unfounded ideas have been advanced as explanations. As in so many other phases of radiotherapy, the first knowledge of the possible value of irradiation in inflammatory conditions resulted from the observation of unexpected benefit following exposure, for diagnostic purposes, of parts of the body which were the seat of inflammatory lesions.
FURUNCLE, CARBUNCLE AND OTHER PYOGENIC INFECTIONS
The influence of irradiation on such lesions, especially when treated during the stage of maximal leukocytic infiltration, which is to say before the stage of frank suppuration, has been demonstrated by Coyle1 (1906), Dunham2 (1916), Ross