Submitted by: Submitted by teotiteo
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Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 02/11/2009 07:25 AM
Technology has drastically changed the medical profession. Prior to the end of the nineteenth century, doctors lacked the ability to diagnosis many internal medical problems without having to cut open the patient. The phrase “ medical technology “ frequently evokes thoughts of x-rays. X-rays, however, is just one of the many technological tools that make up medical imaging technology
First of all, radiology began as a medical sub-specialty in the first decade of the 1900’s after the discovery of the x-rays in 1895 by Professor William Roentgen (1845-1923) who was professor of physics and the director of the Physic’s Institute of the University of Wurbug. In his lab, he tried to block these rays with cardboard; however, he found that they passed straight through it. Amazingly, if he put his hand between the tube and the screen he could see an image of the bones in his hand and he named this new radiation X-rays and immediately realized how important his discovery would be to the world of medicine. For this fantastic discovery, Roentgen received the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Today, the use of x-rays is common in the hospitals and dentists all over the world.
Secondly, after the World War II, the advent of the digital computer and new imaging modalities like ultrasound and magnetic imaging have been combined to create an explosion of diagnostic imaging technology in such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging or scanning (MRI). Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a method of looking inside the body without using surgery, harmful dyes or x-rays. The MRI scanner uses magnetism and radio waves to produce clear pictures of the human anatomy. MRI is based on a physic phenomenon discovered in the 1930s, called nuclear magnetic fields and radio waves cause atoms to give off tiny radio signal. Felix Block, who worked at Stanford University and Edward Purcell, form Harvard University, discovered NMR that is also called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. A key to MRI is...