Godfrey Hounsfield

[George K]

50 years ago, the first CT scan let doctors see inside a living skull – thanks to an eccentric engineer at the Beatles’ record company

The possibility of precious objects hidden in secret chambers can really ignite the imagination. In the mid-1960s, British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield pondered whether one could detect hidden areas in Egyptian pyramids by capturing cosmic rays that passed through unseen voids.

He held onto this idea over the years, which can be paraphrased as “looking inside a box without opening it.” Ultimately he did figure how to use high-energy rays to reveal what’s invisible to the naked eye. He invented a way to see inside the hard skull and get a picture of the soft brain inside.

The first computed tomography image – a CT scan – of the human brain was made 50 years ago, on Oct. 1, 1971. Hounsfield never made it to Egypt, but his invention did take him to Stockholm and Buckingham Palace.

After the war, Hounsfield followed his commander’s advice and got a degree in engineering. He practiced his trade at EMI – the company would become better known for selling Beatles albums, but started out as Electric and Music Industries, with a focus on electronics and electrical engineering.

Hounsfield’s natural talents propelled him to lead the team building the most advanced mainframe computer available in Britain. But by the ‘60s, EMI wanted out of the competitive computer market and wasn’t sure what to do with the brilliant, eccentric engineer.

While on a forced holiday to ponder his future and what he might do for the company, Hounsfield met a physician who complained about the poor quality of X-rays of the brain. Plain X-rays show marvelous details of bones, but the brain is an amorphous blob of tissue – on an X-ray it all looks like fog. This got Hounsfield thinking about his old idea of finding hidden structures without opening the box.

Much more detail at the link.

As an aside, I remember being a medical student on the neurology service. At that time, one of the attending commented that there's a new type of x-ray that will let you see the brain. "SEE THE BRAIN!" he exclaimed.

He called it the EMI-Scanner.

[jon-nyc]

@george-k said in Godfrey Hounsfield:

As an aside, I remember being a medical student on the neurology service. At that time, one of the attending commented that there's a new type of x-ray that will let you see the brain. "SEE THE BRAIN!" he exclaimed.
He called it the EMI-Scanner

That’s a great story.

[George K]

@jon-nyc one of the feared courses in medical school was neuroanatomy.

Gross anatomy (looking at skeletal, muscular and organ systems) was a course that lasted for 3 quarters - a full academic year. Neuroanatomy (learning brain and spina cord anatomy) lasted 2 quarters.

Neuroanatomy was an obscure, arcane, imagination-inspired course. At the time, learning where nerves went, from brain to spinal cord to peripheral tissues was accomplished by looking at cross sections of brain and other tissues, stained by obscure dyes to differentiate the structures.

It was really difficult.

But... all made sense.

If you knew the anatomy, you could diagnose the disease.

You couldn't SEE a brain tumor, but based on symptoms and a very thorough neurologic exam (I was very good at a neurologic exam), you could determine where it was.

You couldn't SEE multiple sclerosis, but based on symptoms and a very thorough neurologic exam, you could determine that the disease was multi-focal. Combined with a spinal tap, you could make the diagnosis.

You couldn't SEE a stroke, but based on symptoms...you could tell what part of the cerebral circulation was affected.

I was on the service when we diagnosed Ron Popiel (Senior) with myasthenia gravis.

The elegance of taking a good history, and a precise exam to arrive at a diagnosis was exciting. It was almost like being Sherlock Holmes. Truly thrilling, at least for me. It made me want to be a neurologist. It was so intellectual. It all made sense.

And then, I realized...most of the time, you can't do anything.

It's like the dog that catches the car: "OK, now what are you going to do?"

And so, I didn't become a neurologist...

[taiwan_girl]

very cool story @George-K