Tucked between pleas for the return of a travelling case left on the subway and a brown leather purse lost at the Polo Grounds, The New York Times鈥檚 鈥淟ost & Found鈥� column for 27 July 1923 contained this curious ad: 鈥淔OUR FIELD MICE lost from laboratory, 244 W 74th St., each mouse has a round bald spot on the right side caused by scientific experimentation. $20 reward for each mouse returned dead or alive to Dr. Albert C. Geyser, 244 W 74th St.鈥� New Yorkers were not to know it, but those fugitive mice were harbingers of one of the worst medical disasters of their time.
FOLLOWING in 1895, doctors around the world turned their primitive X-ray machines on everything from their own hands to patients with cancer and tuberculosis. To Albert Geyser, a brash German immigrant who graduated from a New York medical school in that heady year of discovery, X-rays were clearly the future of medicine.
Researchers quickly noticed that exposure to X-rays had a remarkable side effect: it made hair fall out. In Austria, physician Leopold Freund recommended it as a treatment for excess body hair, or hypertrichosis. 鈥淗air begins to fall out in thick tufts when lightly grasped, or it is seen on the towel after the patient鈥檚 toilet,鈥� he observed in 1899. Unlike painful tweezing and caustic chemicals, Freund pronounced, 鈥渨e possess in the Roentgen-treatment an absolutely painless method of epilation鈥�. Tests followed across Europe and North America with apparent success, even 鈥渃uring鈥� a 鈥渂earded lady鈥� in Louisville, Kentucky. There were already hints that all was not well, however. In France, some doctors reported that their patients had fallen ill. Loath to admit that X-rays were responsible, Freund blamed 鈥渢he hysterical character鈥� of French patients.
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鈥淓xposure to X-rays had a remarkable side effect: hair fell out鈥�
Now working at Cornell Medical College in New York, Geyser embraced X-rays with enthusiasm. Like many others, he paid a high price for his zeal: radiologists were belatedly realising that frequent exposure to X-rays could be dangerous, and Geyser suffered burns that claimed the fingers of his left hand. Undeterred, he invented the Cornell tube 鈥� an X-ray vacuum tube of leaded glass with a small aperture of common glass, meant to direct lower-energy, or 鈥渦ltrasoft鈥�, X-rays directly onto a small area of skin. With the Cornell tube, 鈥渢he X-ray is robbed of its terrors鈥�, declared The New York Times. By 1908 Geyser had administered about 5000 X-ray exposures with his tube, for a variety of skin ailments. Others remained suspicious of X-rays, and the County Medical Society鈥檚 lawyer warned Geyser that 鈥渢he time is coming soon when if a man is burned, the doctor will be held liable鈥� Don鈥檛 use the X-ray unless you know what you are doing with it.鈥�
Confident that he did know what he was doing with it, Geyser announced in 1915 that he had treated 200 people for hypertrichosis. 鈥淩oentgen therapy is the treatment for hypertrichosis,鈥� he insisted in the Journal for Cutaneous Diseases, explaining that 鈥渨hen using the Cornell tube no protection of any kind, either for patient or operator, is needed鈥�. He carried on experimenting, and his doctor son Frank even began offering treatments from his own Manhattan surgery. By 1924, the elder Dr Geyser was ready to formally unveil his hair-removal treatment, and the Tricho Sales Corporation was born.
Ads for the Tricho System were soon everywhere. 鈥淪uperfluous hair gone for good,鈥� one proclaimed in the Oakland Tribune. 鈥淣ewest method鈥� Absolutely painless. No needles.鈥� Hundreds more adverts extolling the virtues of a 鈥淣ew Electrical Invention鈥� followed in newspapers across North America. 鈥淎rtistically reproduces the process of nature鈥� no injury to the skin will result,鈥� promised the Syracuse Herald; 鈥渨omen of refinement鈥� in Erie, Pennsylvania, were told of a 鈥渞adio vibration鈥� treatment, and in Canada the women of Winnipeg were promised 鈥渁 hair starvation process鈥� so safe that 鈥淭richo treatments have been given to wives, daughters and sisters of physicians鈥�.
What exactly was this treatment? 鈥淣othing but a ray of light touches you,鈥� the ads assured readers 鈥� though they were curiously vague about just what those rays were.
The Tricho clinics that sprang up in more than 75 American cities gave little away either. Clients sat at a mahogany cabinet with a small front window for the treatment area. The operators, fresh from two weeks鈥� training with Geyser, threw a switch, and then 鈥� nothing happened, save for a faint hum and a whiff of ozone. After a few minutes the machine automatically shut off and the patient booked her next session. Sure enough, their hair fell out. Women were delighted: the New York City clinic alone boasted 20,000 clients. With fees for a course of treatment ranging from a few hundred to over a thousand dollars, the Tricho business was extraordinarily lucrative.
Tricho鈥檚 triumph was short-lived. The first sign of trouble was in 1926, when Ida Thomas of Brooklyn sued Frank Geyser for a staggering $100,739 鈥� the cost of her facial treatments plus $100,000 in damages. The reason? After young Frank鈥檚 prototype treatments in 1920 to 鈥渃ure鈥� her facial hair, her skin had inexplicably thickened and wrinkled. The case attracted little attention, but Geyser鈥檚 son found himself in the news again two years later when he was arrested following a similar complaint. The Geyser family鈥檚 troubles were beginning to look more serious.
By now doctors were seeing a growing number of women with the same symptoms: wrinkling, mottling, lesions, ulcers and even skin cancer. The signs of X-ray damage were unmistakable. 鈥淚n their endeavor to remove a minor blemish, they have incurred a major injury,鈥� concluded the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In July 1929 the AMA decided it had seen enough, and formally condemned the Tricho treatment.
Unbowed, Tricho played its trump card: an endorsement by Ann Pennington, glamorous star of that year鈥檚 hit film Gold Diggers of Broadway. And if clients had any lingering doubts, the elder Geyser鈥檚 impeccable medical credentials probably reassured them. Yet closer inspection of Geyser鈥檚 record would have shown that although he carried out research at a prestigious medical college, some of his work was decidedly dubious: he had used electric shocks to treat all sorts of conditions, from gonorrhoea to asthma, and had made unsubstantiated claims to have found cures for tuberculosis and anaemia.
Inevitably, more Tricho victims appeared in JAMA, including a patient in Washington DC 鈥渟o depressed as a result of the disfigurement of the X-ray burn that she attempted suicide鈥�. Geyser, it seemed, had either been too greedy to heed any warnings, or had convinced himself that his Cornell tubes really were safe. Whatever his motivation, he had installed poorly regulated X-ray machines across the country, and tens of thousands of women 鈥� perhaps even more 鈥� were exposed to massive doses of radiation on their faces and arms. They had also received wildly varying doses: some women had as few as four treatments, others as many as 50. And because X-ray exposure rises as an inverse square of distance, even a slight shift in sitting position could double or treble a client鈥檚 dose.
With the prospect of being sued for millions of dollars, the Tricho Sales Corporation collapsed in 1930. But the Tricho story didn鈥檛 end there.
Emboldened by Tricho鈥檚 quick profits, copycat operations sprang up in beauty parlours across the US and Canada, bearing such innocent-sounding names as Marton Laboratories, Hair-X and the Dermic Institute. One operator questioned by the authorities in Vancouver could scarcely name a single major technical specification of her machine, let alone who built or serviced it.
Pressure from local medical and business groups drove these operators from view 鈥� but not out of business. In 1940, detectives in San Francisco raided what they thought was an illegal abortion clinic. It turned out to be a backstreet hair-removal clinic. Such clinics operated as shadowy cash-only enterprises until at least the 1950s.
Decades later, a second wave of Tricho-related injuries emerged: telltale scarring, wrinkling and cancers that, as one doctor in Toronto put it, were 鈥渙bvious stigmata of radiation exposure鈥�. One 80-year-old woman arrived with a grapefruit-sized tumour in her head; another refused treatment until she had 鈥渁 huge and deep crater occupying practically the whole lower half of the breast and the chest wall immediately below it鈥�. By 1970, US researchers were attributing over one-third of radiation-induced cancers in women to X-ray hair removal.
Given cancer鈥檚 long latency and the many years that Tricho parlours and their ilk persisted, the procedure may not yet have claimed its final victim. Tricho鈥檚 most famous customer, though, had reason long ago to regret her endorsement. After spending her final years as a recluse in a small hotel room off Broadway, Ann Pennington died in 1971. Her cause of death, it was reported, was a brain tumour.
