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More than 50 years ago, the first CT scan allowed doctors to see the inside of a living skull, thanks to an eccentric engineer at Beatles Records.

Godfrey Hunsfield stands next to an EMI scanner in 1972. The precious items that PA Images via Getty Images may be hiding in the secret room can really stimulate people's imagination. In the mid-1960s, British engineer Godfrey Godfrey Hounsfield wondered whether hidden areas in the Egyptian pyramids could be detected by capturing cosmic rays passing through invisible holes.

The idea that he has been adhering to for many years can also be understood as "you can see inside without opening the box." Finally, he figured out how to use high-energy rays to show what is invisible to the naked eye: he invented a way to see the inside of the hard skull and got an image of the inside of the soft brain.

The first computed tomography (CT) scan of the human brain was taken on October 1, 1971, 50 years ago. Hunsfeld had never been to Egypt, but his invention took him to Stockholm and Buckingham Palace.

An engineer's innovation Godfrey Hunsfield's early life did not show how much he could achieve. He is not a particularly excellent student. When he was a little boy, his teacher called him "honest and honest".

He joined the RAF at the beginning of World War II, but he was not a good soldier, but he was an electrical and mechanical prodigy-especially the ability to emergency equip radar to help pilots better find their way home on dark and cloudy nights.

After the war, Hunsfeld followed the commander's advice and later earned a degree in engineering. He interned at EMI, a company that later became famous for selling Beatles albums, but it started as the electronics and music industry (Electric and Music Industries), focusing on electronic and electrical engineering.

Hunsfeld uses his talent to lead a team to develop Britain's most advanced mainframe computer. But in the 1960s, EMI wanted to pull out of the competitive computer market and didn't know what to do with the talented and eccentric engineer.

During a forced vacation, Hunsfeld thought about his future and what he might do for the company. During this time, he met a doctor who complained about the poor quality of the brain pictures taken by X-rays. Ordinary x-rays can show the details of the bones very well, but the amorphous tissue mass of the brain looks like fog under the x-rays.

This reminds Hunsfeld of the old idea that hidden structures can be found without opening the box.

A new method reveals things that have never been seen before. Hunsfield proposes a new way to solve the imaging problem inside the skull.

The x-rays hit the "slices" of the brain at a semicircular angle from 1 to 180 degrees. Edmund S. Higgins CC BY-ND first of all, he conceptually divides the brain into consecutive slices like sliced bread. He then plans to pass through each layer with a series of x-rays, repeating this step for each degree in the semicircle, capturing the intensity of each beam on the other side of the brain-the stronger light that passes through the lower-density material.

Calculate the intensity of each beam of x-rays passing through the object, and then do the reverse operation with an incredible algorithm, so that it is possible to construct an image. Edmund S. Higgins, CC BY-ND finally, among Hunsfield's most original inventions, there is an algorithm that can reconstruct brain images based on all slices. Using reverse calculation by one of the fastest new computers at the time, he was able to analyze the value of each small square in each layer of brain slices. Got it!

But there is one problem: EMI has not set foot in the health care market, nor does it have any intention of doing so. The company allowed Hunsfield to continue to develop his products, but did not provide sufficient funds. He was forced to rummage through the abandoned heaps of research equipment to piece together an original scanner-small enough to be placed on the dinner table.

Despite successful scans of inanimate objects and later the brains of kosher cattle, EMI management remained unimpressed. If Hunsfeld wants to continue working on body scanners, he needs to find outside funding.

Hunsfield's US patent contains a schematic diagram of the CT scanner. Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield Hunsfeld is a talented and intuitive inventor, but not an effective communicator. Fortunately, he had a compassionate boss, Bill Ingham, who saw the value of the Hunsfield proposal and struggled with EMI to keep the project going.

He knew they couldn't get funding right away, but he persuaded the Department of Health and Social Security (U.K. Department of Health and Social Security) to buy equipment for the hospital. Ingham miraculously sold four scanners before they were built. So Hunsfeld organized a team to race against the clock to build a safe and effective body scanner.

Meanwhile, Hunsfeld needs patients to test his machine. He found a neurologist who reluctantly agreed to help and asked the team to install a full-size scanner at Atkinson Morley Hospital (Atkinson Morley Hospital) in London. On October 1, 1971, they scanned the first patient: a middle-aged woman who showed signs of a brain tumor.

It's not a fast process-it takes 30 minutes to scan, drive through town with a tape, spend two and a half hours processing data on an EMI mainframe computer, then take pictures with a Polaroid camera and run back to the hospital.

The first clinical CT scan showed that the brain tumor showed deep spots.' Medical Imaging Systems: An Introductory Guide,' Maier A, Steidl S, Christlein V, et al., editors., CC BY is right there-- in her left frontal lobe-- a plum-sized cystic mass. As a result, all other brain imaging methods are out of date at the moment.

Every year, millions of CT scans, EMI, which has no experience in the medical market, suddenly monopolize a machine in great demand. After it put the scanner into production, it was very successful in sales at first. But within five years, larger, more experienced and more capable companies such as General Electric and Siemens have developed better scanners, quickly encroaching on sales. EMI eventually withdrew from the health care market, which became a case where it proved that "it is better to work with a big company than to fight alone."

On December 11, 1979, King Karl Gustav of Sweden awarded the Nobel Prize to Hunsfield in Stockholm. Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images Hunsfield's innovation has changed medicine. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1979 and was knighted by the Queen in 1981. He continued to invent until his death in 2004 at the age of 84.

In 1973, American Robert Ledley (Robert Ledley) invented a full-body scanner that could image other organs, blood vessels and, of course, bones. Modern scanners are faster, have higher resolution and, most importantly, have less radiation exposure. In addition, there are even mobile scanners.

Modern CT scans provide higher-resolution "slice" images of the brain than Hunsfeld's original scan in 1971. By 2020, American technicians conducted more than 8000 scans a year. Some doctors think that this number is too high, perhaps 1/3 of which is unnecessary. While this may be true, CT scans help identify tumors and determine whether surgery is needed, which has benefited the health of many patients around the world. They are especially useful for quickly searching for internal injuries after an emergency.

Remember Hunsfeld's idea of the pyramids? In 1970, scientists placed cosmic ray detectors in the lowest room of the Hafra pyramid. They concluded that there were no hidden chambers in the pyramids. In 2017, another team placed a cosmic ray detector at the Great Pyramid of Giza and found a hidden but inaccessible room, but it is unlikely to be explored any time soon.

Original text link:

Https://theconversation.com/50-years-ago-the-first-ct-scan-let-doctors-see-inside-a-living-skull-thanks-to-an-eccentric-engineer-at-the-beatles-record-company-149907

The content of the translation only represents the author's point of view, not the position of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ID:cas-iop), author: E. S. Higgins, translator: Crunc, revision: zhenni

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