The radiology turns one century in 1995.
Röentgen discovered the X rays at 8 November 1895, in his laboratory of Würzburg. Twenty days after the discovery he communicated his discovery to the world. His results showed also his wife hand X ray photograph.
>From those discoveries, the world started a series of inquiries about the nature and application of the X rays. The investigations in these days continue. The X rays, in these days, are used in both therapy and diagnosis.
We will relate the more important events originated by the discovery of the X rays, in the next paragraphs. All those discoveries cemented the use and trust of the X rays. Also those discoveries expanded the knowledge about the nature of the X rays.
Enrico Salvioni, Italian scientist, created, in January of 1896, the fluoroscopy technique. The scientists use it, in essence, in these days.
A court in Montreal, in March of 1896, used X ray photographs as a criminal evidence. The photographs show a bullet allocated in the victim muscles, that the exploratory surgery could no reveal.
Francis Henry Williams, doctor from Boston and graduated from the Technological Institute of Massachusetts, specialized in the instrumental uses, to medical purposes, of the X rays. And he applied them in diagnosis. He included the use of the fluoroscopy to the study of the veins; in this way he invented the angiography.
The therapeutic uses of the X rays become later.
Marie Curie and her husband discovered the radium. That was the year of 1898. This discovery, like of the X rays, caught the imagination of the world. The radio is the natural source of the X rays. Additionally is portable. The physicists, and the public in general, transport small quantities of radio in their pockets, they put it in facial creams, in the drinks, etc. It is a collective madness.
Inside that madness, the general public believes that the radio have healing properties. The general public thinks that it alleviates the flu. That reduces the blood pressure. That it heals the insomnia. That it increases the sexual power. And, according to that beliefs, the general public behaves. The general public uses glasses contaminated with radio. Uses ceramic plates radiated with radio. Organize fiestas where it drinks cocktails contaminated with radon. It plays the radio roulette -a roulette painted with radioactive colors- that shines in the dark rooms. And by it ignorance, and daring, dies also.
A few scientists see the harmful that the X rays are. Between those, the German scientists Friedrich Giesel and Friedrich Walkhoff. They discovered that the X rays from the radio damage the skin. The pioneer physicists, apparently, did not notice the harmful that the X rays are. They work continuously exposed. They suffer the consequences.
The physicists that discovered the radioactivity suffered the harmful effects of the X rays. Burns in the skin, by over exposition to the X rays, and leukaemia. Amputations. The death, eventually.
Mary Curie died of leukaemia generated by over exposition to the X rays. And Clarence Dally, assistant of Thomas Alva Edison, in the experiments with X rays, died after suffering many amputations.
For those incidents and others, the physicians and the physicists confined in their consulting offices and in their laboratories the X rays and the natural sources of radiation. The physicists, step by step, learned how to use them and to control them. In 1910, eyes protectors and metal shields were commonly used to armour-plate the X rays.
During the first world war, the field hospitals and the station of aid used the X rays. The application is in diagnosis.
Carlos Hauser, Argentinian radiologist doctor, used the potassium iodide diluted in water to create contrasts and to take photographs of veins. He works and publishes his results in Argentina. That was the year of 1919. The technique is reinvented in other parts of the globe.
The doctors, in the decade of 1920, used the thorax X ray photograph to diagnose tuberculosis. They succeeded in saving many human lifes. In that same decade, the Portuguese doctor Egaz Moniz developed the modern angiotherapy. He got images of the circulatory system of an alive brain. And the doctors of St. Louis, Evarts Graham and Warren H. Cole discovered how to X ray photograph the bladder and diagnose its illness.
It is created the first organization of radiologists in the USA in 1934. It is recognized by the American associations of physicians. In 1936 it is presented in a congress of radiology the first tomography. It is a radiographic view of the body seen from different angles, to reveal its tridimensional structure. The technique also is called laminography. It gave origin to the computerized tomography of the 1970 decade.
In the 1930 decade, the physicians experimented with hard X rays, produced by powerful high voltage supplies, in the treatment of larynx cancer and of tonsil cancer. It is born the therapeutic uses of the X rays. The main problem is the control of deposited energy. And it is also in these days the main problem. It is the main problem of any other technique of radiation.