Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century
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Book Overview
A century ago, the living body, like most of the material world, was opaque. Then Wilhelm Roentgen captured and X-ray image of his wife's finger--her wedding ring "floating" around a white bone--and our range of vision changed forever. By the 1920s, X-ray technology was common-place: all army recruits had lined up for chest pictures during WWI, and children were examining the bones of their feet in shoe store fluoroscopes, spectacularly unaware of the radiation they were absorbing. Through lucid prose, vivid anecdotes, and over seventy striking illustrations, science writer Bettyann Holtzman Kevles shows how X-rays and the subsequent daughter technologies--CT, MRI, PET, ultrasound--transformed the practice of medicine (from pediatrics to neurosurgery), the rules of evidence in courts, and the vision of artists.
Customer Reviews
Rated 5 starssuperior science writing
I love reading science books geared toward non-scientists such as I. Bettyann Holtzmann Kelves Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century exactly fit the bill. Profusely illustrated and gracefully written, this fine work of non-fiction tells the story of x-rays, CT scan, MRI, sonograms, and PET scans. Kelves writes for the non-scientist, and does an excellent job of explaining how these various machines...
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Rated 5 starsWhat an incredible story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
I listened to the interview on NPR's Science Friday several months ago thought how exciting can the discovery of x-rays be? I gave it a quick glance at a local book store and I was hooked. Did people actually buy lead lined underwear? Do physicians make mistakes? Even if they are treating the president of the United States? Lawyers found a way to profit from x-rays 100 years ago too. It is cleverly presented describing...
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Rated 4 stars"An occasional error- - - - " in "Naked to the Bone".
On page 92 of "Naked to the Bone", author Kevles gibes at the 1896 edition of "Practical Radiography", which through 20 years of reprints carried an inverted x-ray frontispiece captioned "The Human Heart in situ". She explains that "many people, including physicians, simply could not tell what they were looking at in a radiograph or through a fluoroscope." I would certainly wish her the same 20 years of reprints for her...
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