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Editorial Notes

The recent shocking disaster at the Cleveland Clinic Hospital, Ohio, has brought home the potential dangers of the storage of large quantities of X-ray films in hospitals. We have not yet received the essential facts of the catastrophe, but it would appear that an explosion in the film store in the basement was followed by an invasion of the hospital by the products of combustion, probably mainly carbon monoxide and nitric oxide, both of them toxic, and the latter by its combination with oxygen forming the brown fumes of nitrogen dioxide, which no doubt led to the confusion at the time with bromine vapour.

While it has to be borne in mind that there appears to be no record in this country of the presence of X-ray films giving rise to a serious accident, considerable anxiety has been created by the Cleveland disaster, and hospital authorities are being led to review their arrangements. We understand that the Protection Committee are considering the matter, and propose to issue recommendations in due course. In the meantime, there are certain obvious commonsense precautions that may well be adopted, for example—

(1) The desirability of storing films in special cabinets or cupboards, and so limiting the number of films lying open during reference.

(2) The undesirability of permitting smoking or naked lights in the proximity of a film store.