Eugene W. Caldwell
Eugene W. Caldwell (1870–1918) was an American engineer, radiographer, and physician who conducted early work on the medical uses of X-rays. A native of Missouri, Caldwell studied engineering at the University of Kansas. After working as an engineer for five years, Caldwell became interested in X-rays in 1897, opening what may have been the first X-ray clinic in New York City. He taught radiography at University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College and later graduated with a medical degree from that institution. Caldwell was president of the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) in 1907, invented  the first portable X-ray machine for use at a patient's bedside, and devised a positioning technique known as Caldwell's view that allowed for X-ray visualization of the sinuses. He also enhanced X-ray technology to reduce the exposure time required to obtain an image, created a stereoscopic device for X-rays so that they could show depth, and modified an existing stereoscopic fluoroscope for wartime use. In 1917, Caldwell was named chief of the new roentgen ray department at Columbia University, making him one of the first radiology professors in the United States. After developing radiation  burns and radiation-related cancer, he underwent numerous surgeries, including an arm amputation, shortly before his death. He had been a captain in the Medical Reserve Corps, and he was promoted to major shortly before he died. The ARRS established the annual Eugene W. Caldwell Lecture in 1920. Early life. Caldwell was born in Savannah, Missouri, to attorney William W. Caldwell and the former Camilla Kellogg. He showed an early interest in mechanical and electrical devices, having grown up in an era during which a number of electrical innovations had been significantly refined, including electric light, telephones, and transatlantic telegraph  cables. After high school, he went to the University of Kansas to study electrical engineering. At Kansas, Caldwell joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. He made friends with a number of students who became influential in their fields, including Herbert S. Hadley, who became the governor of Minnesota; Frederick Funston, who became an army general; and William Allen White, who became a newspaper editor and a leader in the Progressive movement. Caldwell rented a room from political activist Annie Le Porte Diggs. While in college, Caldwell even applied his electrical knowledge outside the classroom; once he connected a wire to  his doorknob that would deliver a shock to uninvited guests, and sometimes he ran cables to his friends' boarding houses so they could communicate by telegraph. Caldwell was inspired by Kansas physics professor Lucien Blake, who invited him on a trip to the eastern seaboard, where they worked together to develop submarine signaling technology. Blake and Caldwell conducted research together in Massachusetts every year of Caldwell's college career. Caldwell also worked with Blake in the summer after his 1892 graduation, but his attention was turning toward securing an engineering job. Even late in life, Caldwell said he was grateful  for establishing a relationship with Blake. Work as an engineer. Using Blake's connections, Caldwell got a job offer with Bell Telephone Company in Boston in 1892, but he was not sure the position had good prospects, so he took a job installing electric railways with the J. G. White Company in Baltimore. In 1893, Caldwell joined Blake again in Kansas to work on telephony systems for lightships. Shortly thereafter, the United States Lighthouse Establishment took over this work from the university, but Caldwell stayed on the job through 1895, when he got a job with Metropolitan Telephone and Telegraph  (later known as the New York Telephone Company). Caldwell's work with the New York Telephone Company was not what he aspired to, but during that time he was inducted into the Sigma Xi honor society, which exposed him to a wide variety of contacts in science and engineering. One such connection was the editor of the "New York Electrical Review", and their association led to Caldwell's publishing a series of articles on telephony. When his friend Fred Funston went down to Mexico to grow coffee in the spring of 1896, Caldwell seemed tempted to go with him to  get away from the climate of the American Northeast, but he decided to stay in the United States to continue his science and engineering pursuits. Early X-ray work. Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895, and Caldwell became fascinated with them soon thereafter. In 1897, he ran across a photographer who seemed eager to sell his X-ray equipment, and Caldwell bought the man out for what he thought was about one-fourth or one-fifth of the value of the equipment. The equipment turned out to be in poor condition, but by the end of the year Caldwell  had repaired it and set up a small office on 53rd Street in Manhattan to take X-rays. This was likely the first X-ray laboratory in New York City. Caldwell contracted with hospitals and physicians for X-ray services. Soon after opening his private practice on 53rd Street, Caldwell relocated to the W. F. Ford Surgical Instrument Company in New York. This way he could advertise his X-ray services to the physicians visiting the surgical supply company. In 1898, Caldwell wrote to his parents that he was trying to sell his X-ray equipment and get a stable  job, possibly with Blake; despite his apparent frustration, Caldwell persisted as a radiographer. His work gained attention at the 1899 New York Electrical Exposition, where he displayed an improved induction coil that allowed X-ray images to be obtained in a fraction of the usual exposure time. Caldwell himself had been experiencing dermatitis from prolonged X-ray exposure since his first year as a radiographer. His improvement to the induction coil became known as the Caldwell liquid interrupter. Caldwell held a half interest in W. F. Ford starting in 1899. Around this time he began taking anatomy classes in the  evenings as a special student at the College of Physicians and Surgeons so that he could better understand the medical implications of his X-ray work. In 1901, Caldwell began teaching radiography at the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College, and he set up the Edward N. Gibbs Memorial X-Ray Laboratory at Bellevue Hospital. In a fall 1901 article in the "Electrical Review", Caldwell described a device he developed in his laboratory to add stereoscopy to X-rays. Until that time, an X-ray image might show that a foreign object (such as a bullet) was positioned to the  right or left of a bone, but it could not show whether the object was in front of the bone or behind it. Caldwell's new X-ray tube worked on the principle of stereopsis, which occurs when slightly offset images are shown to a subject, one to each eye in rapid succession, and the resulting combination of images yields depth perception. The anticathodes in Caldwell's X-ray tube displayed sixty images per second. Through the use of a shutter system, the images were shown alternately to each eye at thirty images per second. Medical career. Caldwell enrolled at  Bellevue as a medical student in 1902; that year he was elected an associate of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). By 1903, Caldwell was so busy that he separated from W. F. Ford. With William A. Pusey, he published a textbook that year called "The Practical Application of the Roentgen Ray in Therapeutics and Diagnosis". Caldwell graduated from medical school in 1905. He had been driven to complete medical school by his belief that radiology was a specialty that should be undertaken by physicians rather than by photographers or other non-medical personnel. Radiologist Robert N. Berk wrote  that Caldwell was one of the first Americans to recognize the importance of medical training for radiographers. In a 1909 New York State Medical Society speech, Caldwell described the difficulties created by the straightforward appearance of the radiograph. Caldwell served as the 1907 president of the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS), and the same year he described a new positioning technique (later known as Caldwell's view) for visualizing the sinuses with X-rays. However, that year he also visited a surgeon friend of his regarding the painful radiation injuries to his hands; the surgeon excised the wounds and performed  skin grafts. In 1910, when New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor was shot, Caldwell was summoned to perform and interpret his X-rays. Harry Miles Imboden, an established physician with a newfound interest in X-rays, moved to New York City in 1911 to become Caldwell's protégé. The two men worked together for the rest of Caldwell's career. Imboden later became the editor-in-chief of the "American Journal of Roentgenology". In 1917, Caldwell became one of the first radiology professors in the United States when he joined Columbia University as chief of the newly established roentgen  ray department. Caldwell also devised the first motor-driven X-ray film viewer, the first portable X-ray machine for bedside use, and the first motor-driven, continuous-tilting X-ray table with an integrated fluoroscopy screen above it and an X-ray tube below it. Personal life. Caldwell lived on Park Avenue in New York City. He married the former Elizabeth Perkins in 1913. Illness and death. Caldwell was called to active duty during World War I in 1917. He had been a captain in the Medical Reserve Corps for several years by that point. Sir James Mackenzie Davidson  had invented a stereoscopic device for fluoroscopy, and Caldwell worked on improving the device so that it would be more practical for military use. He wanted to go to Europe to experiment with his innovations, but an abrasion appeared on his hand that was ultimately diagnosed as cancer. Caldwell served his duty from New York so that he could seek treatment for his illness. Caldwell consulted with the surgeon friend who had performed his skin grafts a decade earlier. That surgeon recommended a finger amputation but was not able to come to New York at the time, so another surgeon  performed the procedure. When the cancer progressed, Caldwell's surgeon friend performed a more complete finger amputation and amputated a second finger. In mid-June 1918, the cancer was determined to have invaded the axillary lymph nodes, necessitating amputation of the arm at the shoulder. His stereoscopic fluoroscopy device had first been shipped to Europe around the time that his arm was amputated. The military promoted Caldwell to major around the same time. Caldwell died on June 20, 1918, several days after undergoing the arm amputation. Because of how sick Caldwell had become, doctors thought that the cancer had metastasized  to his lungs. At a memorial service at the Campbell Funeral Church, speakers included U.S. Army physicist and X-ray expert J. S. Shearer, who said it was strange that someone "of high genius and kindly in all his traits ... should pass away while active in the greatest conflict civilization has known." Noted pathologist James Ewing performed Caldwell's autopsy, and he said Caldwell did not die of metastatic cancer and that there was no cancer in Caldwell's lungs. Instead, his death was from sepsis brought on by his surgeries and by radiation dermatitis. The ARRS established the annual  Eugene W. Caldwell Lecture in 1920.