The diagnostic and therapeutic promise of x-rays drew Americans into hospitals at an unprecedented rate in the early twentieth century, and yet the dangers associated with medical x-rays were significant and well known. Anyone walking into an x-ray room—patients, doctors, technicians—risked electrocution from high-voltage power sources, fire from tremendously flammable x-ray film, and even blunt trauma from falling apparatus.¹ When the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) published the first nationally recognized set of guidelines for x-ray protection in 1931,² a significant portion of the pamphlet offered recommendations intending to minimize these electrical and fire hazards. Overall, these recommendations