Irradiated Blood

In 1928, Emmet Kennard Knott, a Seattle physicist and X-ray dealer, began to experiment with the effect of ultraviolet rays on the blood of dogs. In a local veterinary hospital he infected dogs with streptococci and staphylococci, withdrew a large amount of blood from their veins, irradiated it under an ultraviolet lamp, and put it back in circulation. Theoretically, the rays should have killed the germs. Instead, they killed the dogs.

One winter night, after several months of this kind of thing, stubborn Mr. Knott went down to the dog hospital with a doctor friend. The veterinary was busy, and sent Mr. Knott out to a shed to do his work. The dog was violently ill, the shed was cold, the light poor. So Mr. Knott irradiated only a small amount of blood, bundled up the dog, went home.

When he came back several days later, he was amazed to find that the dog was well. As it must on all researchers, an intimation dawned on him: he had been giving his dogs too much irradiation; ultraviolet rays in large amounts are deadly, in tiny amounts have natural curative power. Hotfoot to the dog pound for more dogs went Mr. Knott.

Scarcely had he settled to his task when his doctor friend begged him to come and irradiate his sister, who was dying of septicemia. Since the case was hopeless, the other physicians in the case consented. Mr. Knott irradiated the woman's blood; she recovered. Today she is strong and healthy, the mother of a husky child.

Dr. James Tate Mason, onetime president of the American Medical Association, heard about this case, encouraged Mr. Knott to go ahead with his experiments. But Dr. Mason soon died, and for five years Mr. Knott could find no doctors who were willing to try so radical a procedure.

In 1933 Dr. Virgil Kinney Hancock, noted Seattle obstetrician, began to try irradiation on hopeless streptococcic and staphylococcic bloodstream infections, with great success. Several years later, he was followed by Drs. Elmer William Rebbeck of Pittsburgh and Henry Alfred Barrett of Manhattan. Last year, after they told him of several thousand successful cases, Dr. George Miley of Philadelphia's Hahnemann Hospital began to put in full time on irradiation, working up case histories, preparing careful fever charts, blood-count tables.

Last week, to the A. M. A. meeting in Manhattan, Mr. Knott took his latest model irradiating machine, an oblong box of stainless steel, about two feet long. All week long, young Dr. Miley, aided by his associate Dr. Alfred Tuttle, demonstrated the machine to thousands of curious doctors, showed them a sheaf of experimental records from Hahnemann. Of 27 irradiated cases of septicemia (bloodstream infection), said he, 22 recovered; 71 irradiated cases of other bloodstream infections, including peritonitis and septic abortion, all recovered.

Principle of the Knott Hemo-Irradiator is simple. A small amount of blood (two cubic centimetres per pound of body weight) is withdrawn from a vein in the arm, mixed with citrate to prevent clotting. The citrated blood is passed through a rubber tube into a small, round quartz and steel irradiation chamber. Against the quartz window the doctor fits a lamp, like a flashlight, which emanates ultraviolet rays. An automatic shutter turns the lamp off every few seconds to prevent over-irradiation. Length of irradiation varies from nine to 14 seconds, depending upon the severity of the infection. Once the blood is delicately irradiated, it is returned immediately to the same vein.

Often several exposures are necessary during the course of an illness. An irradiation takes less than 20 minutes, and patients who are able to walk can go about their business after resting half an hour.

Although irradiation combats a great many of the same infections as chemotherapy, it has none of the harmful aftereffects of sulfanilamide and sulfapyridine. "Irradiation," said Dr. Miley last week, "has never hurt a patient yet."

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