X-Ray Feet for a Perfect Fit: Shoe Store FadHow 'science' sold a dangerous, unregulated device.

From the show

Historically Bad Advice

This story reveals how commercial trends can disguise health risks with the authority of science. From the 1920s to the 1970s, shoe stores used X-ray machines called Pedoscopes to guarantee a 'perfect fit.' Customers, mostly children, saw a glowing image of their foot bones inside new shoes. What they didn't see was the unregulated radiation they and the store clerks were being exposed to, a danger ignored for decades in the name of sales.