|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
Crookes x-ray tubes 1896
On January 8, 1896, the Cleveland Plain Dealer carried a brief notice of William Conrad Roentgen's discovery of x-rays. Dayton C. Miller, professor of physics at the Case School of Applied Sciences, read this with interest and quickly followed Roentgen's lead. Fortunately, Miller had purchased Crookes cathode ray tubes in 1893, while at the World's Columbian Expositon in Chicago, for use in physics experiments and class demonstrations. He soon succeeded in making photographic images of concealed objects, and by February 14, Miller and his assistant Dudley B.Wick Jr., made an x-ray image of Wick's hand. They also used the x-ray to reveal the presence of a bullet in a man's limb.
Making a medical x-ray was no simple matter, however, and the future of the technology was as yet uncertain. Exposure initially took a long time, as much as three hours, while the Crookes tubes and related power equipment were delicate and expensive. Miller labored to reduce exposure time and sought out more reliable equipment. To demonstrate his capability, Miller made a whole-body x-ray of himself. This was one of the first such images, in this case fashioned by piecing together a composite from nine separate photographic plates. Miller published this "X-Ray portrait of a man thirty-one years old" in the November 1897 issue of The American X-Ray Journal.
Overnight, Dayton Miller became Cleveland's first medical x-ray expert. He assisted the prominent surgeon George Crile by making x-ray images of all his accident cases. In addition, Miller shared his technical expertise with local x-ray pioneers George S. Iddings and Weston A. Price. He was among the first to experience x-ray overexposure, first revealed as a rash and soreness in the hand. (Tragically, his assistant Wick died from x-ray related causes in 1905). Despite this portent of the potential dangers of x-ray, Miller persevered and made a lasting contribution to the emergence of radiology.
David F. Channell, "The early medical use of x-rays in Cleveland," Bulletin of the Cleveland Medical Library Association 10 (1973): 3-11.
|
|
