LAB: H June 28, 1948 Dr. Robert Stone University of Culifornia Medical Center, Third and Parnessus Avenue Ban Francisco 22, California ; Dear Dr. Stone: I have been intending to write to you for some time to tell you about the progress of patients with the beta ray burns. I will not go into all of the details, as I hops to show you our colored photographs some day. _ fhe man who was exposed first shows the least serious burns. | limited to the first three fingers of the left hand. — These are They began to blister about the fourteenth day, reached thelr peak about the twenty-fourth day, and started to desyuamate about the thirtieth day. The new epitheliuna seams to be perfectly good, and as of today you cannot tell new from o1d skin. The three other men, exposed two weeks later, ahowed much more extensive involvement of fingers and palms. - Only the left hand of one of these persons was injured but both hands of the others were damaged, the left hand of each more severely than the right in each conse. All ahowed swelling the second day, erythema the third day, two showed blisters about the sixth day, end the third, who had wery thick skin on the palms of his hands, showsd no signs of blisters until about the tenth day. All of the blisters which firet formed separately, gradually colesced to form cone blister on seach hand. Two of the patients showed the peak of ths reaction about the twentyfifth day. The third showed the greatest reaction about the thirtieth day. The blisters have gradually been improving with drying and desquamation of the dead epithelium. Wa finally removed the dead skin several days ago, COPIED/DOE LANL RC” ESELBIT CANCELLED ADMIE 16? R ATIVE CLASSIFICATION RITY OF DOE/ ec BY AUTHO eeEI g 11.4 ce, which, until recently, had formed a good protective coat. After debridement, one of the boys showed fairly good normal pink skin over most of the burned area, but there were still fairly large areas covered by a very thin apithelium. The second boy showed less epithelization and more granulation tissue which appeared quite healthy except for a amall area the size of a dime on the first finger of the left hand. This area was dry, vhite and apparently necrotic. The third boy, whose injury is limited to the left hand, apparently showed deeper involvement with white dry necrosis of the superficial tissues. Unfortunately I did not see the last lesion at the operation spo I don't know the details, WAIS,