| The Military and the X-Ray X-rays prove their worth on the battlefield |
A corridor of a French castle filled with Americn Soldiers waiting to be X-Rayed during WWI. Copyright American College of Radiology150 |
| The advent of WWI created many changes
in the field of American radiology. As the USA gradually became
aligned with Britain and France, their trade with Germany was stopped,
suddenly causing the Allies to manufacture much of the X-Ray equipment
that was needed on the frontlines.151 As
"preparedness" swept the country, X-Ray experts joined the Army Medical Corps
and training schools were set up across America to improve the portability
of the machine itself.152 Researchers such as William David Coolidge developed a mobile tube for military hospitals that could easily travel to different hospital beds. This new equipment had an important advantage: there were few moving parts and thus the machines would be easy to repair.153 While the new apparatus went into mass production, the army searched for enlisted men who had been X-Ray technicians, electricians and photographers to maintain and run the field X-Ray division. Physicians were also trained at military hospitals to find bullets and shrapnel quickly and how tell surgeons where the objects were lodged.154 American doctors also established friendships with French radiologists and shared terminology, as well as techniques, with each other.155 |
The USA was not alone in adapting the X-Ray to the battlefield; the British also used the breakthrough in their British River Wars on the Nile in 1896. Copyright Radiology Centennial Inc.156 |
Before WWI, America had a total of
five mobile X-Ray machines mounted on four-mule wagons. After fifteen
months of fighting, this had grown to over seven hundred automobile units.157
A total of 200 American doctors
were in the field, only second in numbers and status to surgeons. Because
glass was in scarce supply, radiologists turned to film, the medium currently
used in hospitals everywhere.158 After
the armistice, the new veterans were accustomed to the X-Ray machine,
thus helping their families and friends, and consequently the whole of
American society, incorporate the machine into their daily lives.159
Thus, WWI helped not only save thousands of soldiers' lives on the
frontlines of Europe, but simultaneously furthered the adoption of the
X-Ray back in the States. |
| Several years later WWII again created
vast changes to the X-Ray industry. As America went to war in 1939, the
Westinghouse Company had developed 35 millimeter film to use instead of
both glass and the larger film previously employed.160
The government was determined to have a pre-induction health
record of all recruits so they could not be forced to pay for the care
of veterans who innaccurately claimed they had contracted tuberculosis
in the service.161 Once the actual war began,
the USA was prepared with a large stock of new Picker Company designed portable
equipment. New X-Ray field tables and smaller and faster film radiographs
created more efficiency and speed on the battlefield.162
Although WWII was not as important to the development and research
of the X-Ray industry as was WWI, the X-Ray was used in other defense-related
sciences such as radar, submarine detection and the development of nuclear
weapons.163 The war had once again played
an important role in furthering the X-Ray in many areas of American society. |