We even x-rayed feet to see if shoes fit. The shoe industry of course rejected health concerns:

"Representatives of the shoe retail industry denied claims of potential harm in newspaper articles and opinion pieces. They argued that the devices' use prevented harm to customers' feet that otherwise would have resulted from poorly-fitted shoes.", from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope

TBH if the rays only hit the feet (which wasn't the case with this machine, it was far from "tight" and radiation escaped in all directions), total health concern would be smaller.

Hands and feet can tolerate bigger radiation doses than our internal organs. Muscle and bone is not that sensitive, most damage will be on skin.

https://www.env.go.jp/en/chemi/rhm/basic-info/1st/03-02-07.h...

Yeah worst case just cut them off.

In any case shoe salesmen are actually in the business of telling customers their shoe fits even when it doesn't.

A relative who was a shoe salesman in the forties told me if the shoe was too small, tell them it'll fit in the morning because feet swell in the afternoon. If the shoe was too big say it had to have a distance between the toe and the end of the shoe of about one finger width.

In reality you should actually try on shoes until one actually fits comfortably.

I highly doubt this machine was actually used for finding better-fitting shoes as opposed to being a magical contraption used to give authority to the shoe salesman so he could sell more, more expensive shoes faster and with less work.

Metastasized melanoma will still kill you just as dead.

Man, that's a brilliant idea! So sad it's dangerous...!