Edgar Haydon (1859–1942): General practitioner and radium pioneer

Abstract

Summary Edgar Haydon was a general practitioner in Newton Abbot, Devon, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He introduced radium therapy to the cottage hospital in this small market town in 1914 at a time when many cities lacked this facility. He raised funds for the building of a cancer wing and an extension to the hospital that were completed in 1927. This paper describes his fund-raising efforts, some of his cases and the way in which radium treatment influenced the number of cancers treated in the hospital. The hospital's records are fragmentary and leave many questions unanswered about the practicalities of radium treatment in those early years.