As seen at Chernobyl, when skin is irradiated with high energy beta particles, moist desquamation (peeling of skin) and similar early effects can heal, only to be followed by the collapse of the dermal vascular system after two months, resulting in the loss of the full thickness of the exposed skin. Another example of skin loss caused by high-level exposure of radiation is during the 1999 Tokaimura nuclear accident, where technician Hisashi Ouchi had lost a majority of his skin due to the high amounts of radiation he absorbed during the irradiation. This effect had been demonstrated previously with pig skin using high energy beta sources at the Churchill Hospital Research Institute, in Oxford. Cause
ARS is caused by exposure to a large dose of ionizing radiation (> ~0.1 Gy) over a short period of time (> ~0.1 Gy/h). Alpha and beta radiation have low penetrating power and are unlikely to affect vital internal organs from outside the body. Any type of ionizing radiation can cause burns, but alpha and beta radiation can only do so if radioactive contamination or nuclear fallout is deposited on the individuals skin or clothing. Gamma and neutron radiation can travel much greater distances and penetrate the body easily, so whole-body irradiation generally causes ARS before skin effects are evident. Local gamma irradiation can cause skin effects without any sickness. In the early twentieth century, radiographers would commonly calibrate their machines by irradiating their own hands and measuring the time to onset of erythema.
Complications from ARS include an increased risk of developing radiation-induced cancer later in life. According to the controversial but commonly applied linear no-threshold model, any exposure to ionizing radiation, even at doses too low to produce any symptoms of radiation sickness, can induce cancer due to cellular and genetic damage. The probability of developing cancer is a linear function with respect to the effective radiation dose. Radiation cancer may occur after ionizing radiation exposure following a latent period averaging 20 to 40 years. History
Acute effects of ionizing radiation were first observed when Wilhelm Röntgen intentionally subjected his fingers to X-rays in 1895. He published his observations concerning the burns that developed that eventually healed, and misattributed them to ozone. Röntgen believed the free radical produced in air by X-rays from the ozone was the cause, but other free radicals produced within the body are now understood to be more important. David Walsh first established the symptoms of radiation sickness in 1897.Ingestion of radioactive materials caused many radiation-induced cancers in the 1930s, but no one was exposed to high enough doses at high enough rates to bring on ARS. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki resulted in high acute doses of radiation to a large number of Japanese people, allowing for greater insight into its symptoms and dangers. Red Cross Hospital Surgeon Terufumi Sasaki led intensive research into the syndrome in the weeks and months following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.