The History of Radiology

The History of Radiology 

The History of Radiology - Adrian M.K. Thomas., Arpan K. Banerjee

Preface

The history of medicine from antiquity to the present day has been well chronicled in many notable scholarly texts. Radiology, which was founded in 1895 following R ö ntgen’s discovery of X-rays, is a relatively new subspecialty of medicine and as such has often been neglected in medical historical books.

The history of the development of radiology, although a relatively new specialty, is an interesting story. Rapid advances in the 20th cen- tury in physics, chemistry, engineering, and computing enabled engi neers, scientists, and doctors to collaborate and produce remarkable new machines, equipment, and techniques for investigating the human body, thus revolutionizing the science of medical imaging.

In this book the authors have tried to review the remarkable develop- ments that occurred in the fi eld of medical imaging since the discovery of X-rays and have tried to place the advances in not only a historical but also a cultural and social context. A work such as this is perhaps more notable for its omissions and it does not profess to be encyclopaedic.

Great discoveries and inventions in medicine and science often result in accolades going to a few and these people are often said to have been privileged to stand on the shoulder of giants who have preceded them. A book like this would not have been possible without the help of previous scholars, libraries, and many learned institutions and their archives, journals, and collections which are acknowledged in the text and the references. We have attempted to tell the story of the last hundred years of radiology and hope the book will be of interest to a wide range of readers including doctors, scientists, medical physicists, radiographers, historians of medicine and science, as well as any interested lay person. 

Most of the population will undergo some form of medical imaging during their lives. This book hopefully will serve to explain how cur- rent radiology developed from fairly humble beginnings to the modern, sophisticated, high-technology specialty of the 21st century.

Contents

About the authors xiv
Abbreviations xv
1 Wilhelm R ö ntgen and the discovery 1

• The scientifi c background 1
• Nikola Tesla 1
• R ö ntgen and the discovery 3
• Early reception of the discovery 6
• The Nobel Prize 9

2 Early radiology 11

• Ernest Wilson (1871–1911) 12
• Corporal Edward Wallwork RAMC and radiation risks 14
• Early pioneers 18
• Defi ning the normal 20
• Alban K ö hler (1874–1947) 23
• Sebastian Gilbert Scott 24
• Kathleen Clark (1898–1968) and radiographic standardization 26
• British Authors 29
• Early departments 30
• Medico-legal radiology 33
• Border control 35

3 Military radiology 37

• The Italo-Abyssinian War 38
• The Greco-Turkish War 39
• Walter Caverley Beevor and the Tirah Campaign 41
• John Battersby and the River War 42
• The Spanish–American War 43
• The Boer War 43
• Marie Curie and the First World War 45
• Florence Stoney 48
• The Second World War 55
• Post 1945 55

4 Radiology and popular culture 59

• Radiology and paper ephemera 59
• Radiology and art 66
• Radiology and the cinema 68

5 Classical radiology 73

• The plain fi lm 73
• Conventional tomography 75
• The gastrointestinal tract 77
• Contrast media and the renal tract 80
• Traditional neuroradiology 87
• Chest imaging including the tuberculosis screening story 93

6 Computed tomographic scanning 97

• The development of computed tomography 97
• Johann Radon 99
• Allan Cormack and Godfrey Hounsfi eld 99
• Developments in CT scanning 108
• Willi Kalender and helical scanning 112
• Multislice scanning and its clinical impact 113

7 Magnetic resonance imaging 117

8 Ultrasound 123

• Karl Theodor Dussik (1908–1968) 123
• John J. Wild (1914–2009) 126
• Ian Donald (1910–1987) 127
• Doppler ultrasound 133
• The development of ultrasound 134
• FAST ultrasound and bedside ultrasound 136

9 Digital imaging, picture archiving, and communication systems 139

• The development of digital processing 139
• Teleradiology 143
• PACS and HIS/RIS 144

10 Interventional radiology 149

• Development of angiography 149
• Werner Forssmann (1904–1979) 151
• Seldinger and his technique 152
• Charles Dotter and angioplasty 153
• Non-angiographic intervention 154
• Image-guided biopsies and drainage 156
• Modern interventional radiology 156

11 A history of mammography 161

• Raoul Leborgne 162
• Robert Egan and Charles Gros 162
• Breast screening 163
• Digital mammography 163
• Breast biopsy and one-stop clinics 164
• Pelvimetry 165
• Gynaecography 166

12 Nuclear medicine and radioactivity: from nuclear biology to molecular imaging 171

• Henri Becquerel and the Curies 172
• The infl uence of nuclear medicine in the Second World War 178
• Atoms for peace and Joseph Rotblat 179
• Early nuclear medicine 182
• The rectilinear scanner 184
• Hal Anger and his camera 185
• The development of PET and SPECT 189
• Molecular imaging 190

13 Review and the future 193

The centrality of medical imaging to modern clinical medicine 195
Appendix 1: Early British radiology journals 205
Appendix 2: Early British radiology societies 207
Appendix 3: Annotated bibliography and reading list 209
Index 211

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