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Evolution of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital pp 1–12Cite as

Early Culture and Medicine to 1895 and the Creation of the MGH

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Abstract

There is no certainty as to the origins of medicine. Well before recorded history, there was surely a wide spectrum of shamans with their sacred herbs and diverse procedures to relieve symptoms and make the “patients” more comfortable with their situation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The dates of this pilgrimage are only approximate.

  2. 2.

    The most common diagnosis was “insanity.”

  3. 3.

    There is variability of the details of the actual experiment. Roentgen requested that all of his experiment records be burned after his death. Apparently for this series of experiments, he used a Crooke’s tube although earlier he had used Hittorf and Lenard tubes extensively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA

    Herman D. Suit & Jay S. Loeffler

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  1. Herman D. Suit
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  2. Jay S. Loeffler
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Correspondence to Herman D. Suit .

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Suit, H.D., Loeffler, J.S. (2011). Early Culture and Medicine to 1895 and the Creation of the MGH. In: Evolution of Radiation Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6744-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6744-2_1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-6744-2

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