The Early History of New Orleans Radiology and Its Practitioners

Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of the x-ray in late 1895 was relatively quickly shared with the New Orleans community through reports published in 1896 in local newspapers and medical journals. Radiology became popularized through public demonstrations organized by local proponents and was open to both the lay and medical communities. The first clinical x-ray equipment in New Orleans was installed at Charity Hospital in 1896 within the Department of Surgery, and the first examination was performed on December 23, 1896. Initially, those particularly interested in the x-ray phenomenon were photographers and physicists interested in electricity. X-rays were a curiosity, and entrepreneurs set up studios for x-ray photographs and advertised in local newspapers. Early clinical uses were the localization of foreign bodies, particularly bullets, and the evaluation of bones for fractures and other abnormalities. The fluoroscope was quickly adopted by roentgenologists as a faster and easier method for obtaining medical diagnosis but with the disadvantage of the absence of a permanent record. By the early 1910s, the use of x-rays in clinical medicine had been firmly adopted.