Lawnie Byron Morrison was a radiology pioneer who founded the Radiology Department at Deaconess Hospital and who helped establish radiology as a diagnostic subspecialty in its early years. Any discussion of L. B. Morrison and his career must necessamiby speak of his close association with the radiologist Walter James Dodd, who founded both the Radiology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital and its nadiobogy residency program-the first in the United States. The careers of Morrison and Dodd became permanently intertwined when Dodd, already working in the field of radiology, transferred to the University of Vermont to complete his medicab school studies. At that time, Morrison, a pathologist and the medical director of Mary Fletcher Hospital, as well as a professor at the university, taught Dodd pathology, embnyobogy, and histology. Through his friendship with Dodd, Mornson became interested in radiology and in 1914 moved to Boston to study radiology under Dodd’s guidance. The two then opened a practice with a third associate on Marlbonough Street in Boston. In a letter of tribute [1], Ernest Amony Codman, M.D., a cobleague of Morrison, reflected on the personalities of Dodd and Morrison and the association they enjoyed. He states that the “fine traits ofthe master’s (i.e., Dodd’s) character imperceptibly strengthened those of the pupil during the daily transmission of knowledge and experience in the practical application of Roentgen’s discovery.” Codman, an established surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital whose name is attached to the sign of malignant bone tumors, knew both men throughout their careers in radiology and was a great supporter of the use of X-mays in diagnosis. His own work focused on outcomes research and quality management [2, 3] as well as on the study of bone tumors and shoulder injuries. In addition to establishing radiology departments at the Univemsity of Vermont and then at Deaconess Hospital, Morrison founded departments at New England Baptist, Faulkner, Robert Breck Brigham, and Cory Hill Hospitals while also managing the Marlborough Street practice after Dodd’s death (4, 5). He spent countless hours with patients and physicians in his 12hour workdays, yet he also found time for his lively dedication to research. He is most noted for the first description of and pubbication on the hiatus hernia. He presented his findings to the New England Roentgen Ray Society on April 7, 1922 [6], and published a related paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1925 [7]. The reason Morrison frequently found this hitherto obscure type of hernia was probably that he examined patients in the erect and horizontal positions [7]. Morrison fell victim to the harmful effect of radiation, as did many of the early X-ray workers. He suffered from extensive radiation burns of the hands, from ulcers, and, later, from cancen. He experienced no indication of the early damage of nadiation burns that others in the field had experienced [1]. The reason for the radiation burns of early X-ray workers was the tubes used in the early machines. A physician might have had several tubes used for various purposes [8]. Gassy tubes, which produced less penetrating nays, were used to examine less dense areas of the body. However, to examine the abdomen on other dense parts of the body, better-evacuated tubes were used, which produced higher energy and emitted powerfully penetrating nays. Adding to the danger of early X-ray diagnosis
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Jun 12, 2008
Norman Pinder 
Open Access
