Naked to the Bone
Subtitle: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century (Sloan Technology Series)
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: December 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 378
ISBN-13: 9780813523583
Subjects: History of medicine; Medical imaging; Social history; Sociology, Social Studies; Science/Mathematics; Radiologic Diagnosis; Special Subjects In Art; Medical / Nursing; Diagnosis; History; Diagnostic imaging; Radiography, Medical; X-rays
First sentence: On a hot, humid July morning in 1881, President James A. Garfield arrived early at the old Baltimore and Potomac depot on the corner of Sixth and B Streets in Washington, D.C.
Description: By the late 1960s, the computer and television were linked to produce medical images that were as startling as Roentgen's original X-rays. Computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic reasonance imaging (MRI) made it possible to picture soft tissues invisible to ordinary X-rays. Ultrasound allowed expectant parents to see their unborn children. Positron emission tomography (PET) enabled neuroscientists to map the brain.

In this lively history of medical imaging, the first to cover the full scope of the field from X-rays to MRI-assisted surgery, Bettyann Kevles explores the consequences of these developments for medicine and society. Through lucid prose, vivid anecdotes, and more than seventy striking illustrations, she shows how medical imaging has transformed the practice of medicine - from pediatrics to dentistry, neurosurgery to geriatrics, gynecology to oncology.

Beyond medicine, Kevles describes how X-rays and the newer technologies have become part of the texture of modern life and culture. They helped undermine Victorian sexual sensibilities, gave courts new forensic tools, provided plots for novels and movies, and offered artists from Picasso to Warhol new ways to depict the human form.