Body-section Radiography

Abstract

Introduction FOR reasons which will be given later, I have chosen as a title for this communication the term, Body-section Radiography. The fundamental principle involved lies in the mathematical laws of light and optics. If an object is placed in the path or beam of visible light, a shadow is recorded. If the recording medium and the light are made to move synchronously in opposite directions about a fixed axis, the shadow of the object will remain constant in size and in relationship to the source of light. If another object is placed in the beam of light and out of the plane of rotation of the light and the recording medium, its shadow will be inconstant in size, definition, and relationship to the source of the light. The principle involved in visible light necessarily applies to invisible or x-light. It was obvious that sooner or later this principle would be applied to the use of x-rays. Bocage (1) is justly credited with designing a method of a co-ordinated movement of a source of x-ray energy and a recording medium. He began his work in 1917 and made application for a patent in June, 1921. Review of the Literature.—Body-section radiography is relatively new, but an extensive literature already exists. This is strikingly complex, and difficult to understand. Many writers on the subject, by whatever name they have chosen to call it, have described one or more somewhat related procedures under one heading in one article, thereby greatly confusing the reader. Understanding of this subject is not made any easier by the conflicting, often acrimonious, claims made for priority in devising and bringing to practical application the several methods which underlie body-section radiography. I have reviewed this literature and have concluded that the study by J. Robert Andrews (2) is such a masterly exposition that I will not attempt to add much to it. Such is the conflict of claims for priority that I quote the following excerpt from Andrews' article: “I have learned …. that Mr. Jean Kieffer, of Norwich, Connecticut, independently discovered the principle of body-section roentgenography and invented an apparatus for its application. The apparatus was invented in 1929, at which time a patent was applied for in this country. This patent was granted in 1934. The invention of this apparatus in 1929, therefore, takes precedence over the work of Vallebona, Ziedses des Plantes, and Grossmann.” In the literature I have found but six important articles on the subject of body-section radiography since the appearance of Andrews' article, November, 1936, the first in American literature. These are: “Tomography,” editorial in the British Medical Journal of Nov. 27, 1937 (3); “Report on the Clinical Value of Tomography,” at a meeting of a section of Medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine, November, 1937 (4); “Tomography,” McDougall and Crawford, American Review of Tuberculosis, August, 1937 (5); “Essais de Planigraphie,” Delherm and Bernard, May, 1937 (6)