-
Ultrasound-Speed of Sound
underwater bellUltrasound testing was invented in 1826 by swiss physicist Jean-Daniel Colladon. Colladon used an underwater bell to detemine the speed of sound in water. Working with Charles-Frances Sturm, a mathematician, the bell was struck with gunpower from 10 miles away and the arrival of the sound was recorded through a trumphet like device in the water. Together through this experiment they determined that the speed of sound in water to be 1435 m/s which is very close to todays measurements. -
-
Period: to
History of Ultrasound
-
Peizo-Electric Effect
Pierre and Jacques Curie discover the peizo-electric effect http://www.wcume.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Tsung.pdf
http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/history1.html -
Hydrophone-The First Transducer
The sinking of the titantic spurred Paul Langevin to find a better way to detect icebergs so he invented the hydrophone. Working together with Reginald Feesenden who invented the first ultrasound machine in 1914 the hydrophone would become one of the first ultrasound transducers. -
-
The "Cure All" Therapy
Raimar Pohlman introduced ultrasound physiotherapy as a medical practice. Ultrasound was thought to be a kind of "cure all" remedy for conditions such as arthritis, gastric ulcers, eczema, asthma, hemorrhoids, urinary incontinence, elephantiasis, and angina pectoris. -
-
B Mode
Douglas Howry, William Bliss and Gerald Posakony created the immersion tank ultrasound system which was the first B mode linear scanner in 1951. This demonstrated that 2D images of both organs and pathologies could be taken with ultrasound. Image is of the first 360 degree water bath scanner in which the patient was submersed in a tank of water and a lead weight was placed on their abdomen to prevent from floating. The transducer scaned a full 360 degrees. -
-
Somascope
A motorized compound circumferential scanner in which the transducer was mounted around a large metal tank filled with water. This enabled scans of the intraabdominal organs from different angles which made a better image for reading. Referred to as somagrams, both the discovery and the apparatus were reported in the medicine section of Life Magazine. -
-
Pan Scanner
This was an attempt to not require the patient to be immersed in water. The patient sits in a modified dental chair and is strapped against a plastic window of a semi-circular pan filled with saline solution. The transducer rotates through the solution in a semi-circular arc. With no computer to reconstruct images, photographic film was used to record the images. -
-
2D Color Flow Imaging
2D Color flow imaging was obtained in 1975. Velocity waveforms and flow images were encoded in color and superimposed on M-mode and gray scale images. http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/history2.html -
Digital Scan Converter
The first digital scan converter was made in 1976 which had a 256 x 240 pixel memory. This resulted in great improvements in grey scale quality and resolution of the image, http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/history2.html -
Real Time Transvaginal Scanners
The first real time mechanical transvaginal sector scanner was made in 1985. It had a scan angle of 240 degrees. http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/history2.html -
