QUACKERY: RAYTHEON MICROTHERM DEVICE

“Quackery” is the use of items with no, or minimal, medicinal value and touting them as being a so-called cure for a variety of different ailments. The Raytheon microtherm unit was an interesting device that appears on the surface to possibly be quackery, but it is more complicated than appearances would suggest. The device was in fact useful and had its proponents in the 1940s as being an acceptable form of medical treatment. The study of this device shows how things that have legitimate use can sometimes be associated with an unscrupulous cohort of practitioners and therefore be rendered suspect. 

The Raytheon microtherm unit was a device that used microwaves to create heat within body tissue. By using focused microwaves, surrounding tissue was spared from the heat effect. Deep controlled heating can increase blood flow, reduce muscle spasm, and decrease inflammation. As such, it had application in real medical treatment to heat muscles below the skin surface without burning the skin. This was useful to alleviate pain and decrease inflammatory response. This alone made it useful and therefore not quackery.   

The Raytheon microthermal unit was also useful in ophthalmology. Studies involving patients with uveitis, a type of eye inflammation, indicated that Raytheon microtherm treatments produced positive outcomes.  It could, however, damage the tissue around the eye and lead to consequences such as cataracts, and the device was extremely difficult to control. Unfortunately, the practitioners who advocated the unit often had better results than was common and the practice was abandoned. By continuing to study the device, physicians decided that the risk benefit was too great to make it a practical treatment.  

Although some claims regarding the microtherm unit were overstated and lacked scientific support, subsequent research into its applications contributed to the development of contemporary therapies such as microwave treatments, ultrasound, and radiofrequency therapy. The persistent evaluation of the practice and continued regulation and reporting of negative outcomes led to a termination of its use.