X-RAY FILMS TRIUMPH

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 57, 18 February 1927, Page 9

X-RAY FILMS TRIUMPH

AUDIENCE SEE MAN’S LUNGS WORKING. SCREEN HEART-BEATS. London, JEn. 31. Two thousand people sat spellbound in a London cinema yesterday, and watched on the screen the lungs of a living man expanded and contracted. This was made possible by X-ray cinematography. X-ray cinematography is the product of eighteen months ’ research work by Mr Frederick Melville, radiologist at University College, Gower street, London ,and Mr E. Edwards and E. Warnforde, of British Instructional Filins.

DIFFICULTIES. Mr Melville explained the difficulties encountered in the making of the liims to an audience of doctors, scientists, medical students, and educational tliorities. “America,” he saiS, "has been trying for years to make X-ray motion pictures, but has not succeeded in achieving anything more realistic than a collection of still photographs rephotographed with a movie camera.” He showed pictures of vocal chords in action. A terrier dog and a monkey were the subjects. The pictures, taken through the mouths of the animals, were made for aai eminent surgeon who is studying the effect of paralysis on the vocal chords. Pictures of the movements of the fingers, wrist, elbow, forearm, knee, and ankle were shown, and, most important, the beating of the human heart. The pictures were taken less than three weeks ago. No student was allowed to go through more than one “test” because of the danger of dermatitis caused by the amount of light needed to make the film. FILMED HEART. The filming of the heart was dramatic. Mr Melville supervised the placing of his patient, a tall, keen-eyed young student, behind the leaded screen, reminded him tersely that he was about to undergo twelve times the usual X-ray “dose,” and switched on the current. A tremendous crackling and hissing ensued; the image of the man’s chest with the rapidly pulsing heart stood out in bold relief on the green-coloured screen; the camera cranked, the ‘ ‘ target” in the X-ray bulo grew incandescent. Eight) seconds passed—the ordeal was over. The film was rushed to the laboratory to be developed. The excite* meat when it was realised that the experiment was successful can be imagined. . . A Harley street physician, after seeing the film, said; "This will revolutionaise the teaching of anatomy in This and every other country.”