Aging Begins at 30

Seeing Inside the Body Better Year by Year

The invisible light that penetrates tissue to make a record on photographic plate was first discovered in Würzburg, Germany by Professor Wilhelm Roentgen at age 50 on November 8, 1895. He noted that invisible rays (X-rays) caused a phosphor screen (luminous after exposure to light) to glow and then saw the rays passed through the flesh of the hand to produce an image of the bones on a photographic plate. These findings were published in December 1895 by the local medical society and he demonstrated them in January 1896. They were mentioned in the JAMA in February 1896 and a Journal for Radiology (still published) article appeared in London in May. The use of Roentgen or X-rays good and bad exploded throughout the world. These rays were used to locate bullets in the Balkan War of 1897. The same rays were found in March 1896 to have treatment benefits. They were not, however, found, as claimed from time to time, to transmit thoughts, restore vision to the blind, or raise the dead! The rays were later found to be electromagnetic waves much shorter than those of visible light. Roentgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.

The bad effects of loss of hair, burns, skin ulcers, skin cancers and deaths from unprotected overuse took time to uncover. Checking the room to grow for a child's foot inside new shoes did not get controlled until the 1950's. There is a monument in Hamburg, Germany to the medical pioneers who lost their lives in developing the use of X-rays in medicine.

Continued improvements led to better X-ray producing tubes in 1913 and better film in the 1920's. Leukemia treatment with radioactive phosphorous occurred in 1937. Computed axial tomography (CT or CAT scan) mathematically analyzed pivotally cut pictures was developed in the 1970's. It "cuts" sections of the brain or tissue like a slice in a loaf of bread. Injected or inhaled radiochemical tracer studies first used in 1926, magnetic resonance imaging (hydrogen nuclei lined up by a huge external magnet give off weak radio signals when the magnet is turned off) was developed in the 1970's and used in the 1980's. This also produces sectional images. PET or positron (positive "electron") emission tomography visualizing how sugars are used in the brain arrived in the 1980's. Three dimensional pictures of the beating heart in the 1990's were added. One hundred years after discovery of X-rays, radiology is a mainstay of diagnosis and treatment in modern hospitals and comprises about 10% of all hospital tests.

Radiation therapy in the treatment of malignant diseases can be used because rapidly dividing cells (including hair cells) are damaged by doses of radiation relatively harmless to normal tissues. Radiation sickness with lassitude, nausea, loss of appetite and vomiting some hours after treatment can be mitigated by giving smaller more frequent doses of treatment over several days or weeks and the use of new highly effective anti-emetic drugs.

Dr. Roentgen has allowed us to see into the living body of 10 million Americans each year so that operations are less invasive, biopsies sometimes unnecessary, and the results enable some patients to stay out of the hospital.

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