EARLY CLINICAL USE OF THE X-RAY

Western medicine has long been dominated by a faith in the value of science and a belief in the power of technology. I study the history of how technology came to be seen as useful by focusing on one of the most dramatic new tools ever discovered: the X-ray machine. I use a statistically valid sampling of case records from 1900-1925 at the Pennsylvania Hospital to ask why and when physicians at these hospitals came to see X-rays as useful for patient care. Soon after the X-ray's 1895 invention there was seemingly worldwide agreement that it could be used to diagnose common conditions such as fractures and foreign bodies. However, it was only several decades later, after the underlying structure of the hospital changed due to importation of technologies from business, that X-ray images became seen as part of routine patient care.