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Click here to see our objects about Scopy
One of the first imaging improvements was the fluoroscope. Described by Enrico Salvioni (1863 -1904) an Italian physicist, three months after Roentgen’s X-ray discovery. It consisted of a tube with a fluorescent screen at one end and an eyepiece at the other. A body part placed between the X-ray tube and the screen produced an image even in a “lighted” room. Eight month later, (some 8.000 substances had been tested) Thomas Edison announced that calcium tungstate would fluoresce brighter than the original barium platinocyanide.
Having produced this substance in finely dividend form, Thomas Edison (1847-1931) coated a plain support and covered this fluorescent screen (through which x-rays could easily penetrate) with a hood in the shape of a truncated pyramid to exclude daylight. He placed an aperture formed for the eyes at the line of truncation and a supporting handle on one of the sides of the pyramid. Initially termed the vitascope, the device was later called a fluoroscope (fluorscope). (O-112) (O-369) (O-390) (O-699) (O-699)
Edison jubilantly cabled his news to England on Mach 17, 1896:” Please inform Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) that have just found calcium tungstate properly crystallized gives splendid fluorescence with Röntgen ray far exceeding platinocyanide rendering photographs unnecessary”. Subsequent events, however, proved the fallacy of this hasty assumption!
Some type’s equipments are now briefly presented
Primitive fluoroscopic removal screens were systematically used during WWI. An example of fluoroscopy screen used for detection of foreign bodies (projectile of "shrapnel") in wounded patients, and operated in the surgery area. (O-103) Later two types of fluoroscope systems were build, the non-tilting tables or fluoroscopy stand and the tilting tables. Depending of the medical application, thoracic or abdominal or both, the frame design was adapted. By 1920, many significant advances had been made in radiographic and fluoroscopic equipment and techniques . The advances were dictated by medical needs and by the disturbing realization that these spectacularly promising x rays were also very dangerous when improperly used equipment that was available by 1920 included a alternating current transformer with mechanical rectifiers, hot cathode x-ray tubes. (O-93)
Fluoroscopy Stands
In the early days, fluoroscopy of the chest was the method of choice as physicians viewed the anatomy by looking directly into the fluoroscopic screen (O-36) . Gastro-intestinal examinations were also performed with such horizontal equipment (O-125). Dark adaptation was required. In 1916, Wilhelm Trendelenburg introduced red goggles to further enhance the procedure. Once the room was darkened, the goggles (O-404) were removed and the procedure could begin.
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Fluoroscopy Tilting table
Especially for barium examination tilting tables are necessary. The first tables were manually moved (O-331) and later motorized. (O-39) It was until the early 1950s that the development of image intensification rendered the red goggles obsolete: the images were so bright they could be viewed in an undarkened room. Around 1970 the image intensifier was significantly improved with the addition of a cesium iodide input phosphor mounted to a tilting X-ray table.
More: (O-78) (O-117) (O-122) (O-240) (O-242)
Conventional Fluoroscopy
Fluoroscopy is a dynamic imaging technique. This is particularly useful in diagnosis because the motion of various organs and body parts may give important information concerning desease or injury.The major components of the fluoroscope are an x-ray tube and a fluoroscent screen. The x-ray tube used for conventional fluoroscopy is identical to the ones used for radiography; The light output of the fluorescent screen is very low and the observer must view the image in complete darkness.This dark adapted eye is approximately 10 times less acute , there for an image intensifier (Image –Intensified Fluoroscopy) was necessary to improve the interpretation of the image.
Intensified Fluoroscopy
The development of the image intensifier (1950) or image amplifier allowed the viewer to see the image with an visual acuity increased .In addition image intensification allow the use of cine systems, spot-films camera, and television for image recording. Image Intensifier. The image-intensifier tube is an evacuated glass envelope with five major components: The impute phosphor, the photo cathode, the accelerating anode, the electrostatic focusing lenses, and the output phosphor. (O-21) Periscopes (O-33) + (O-353 details) were often used with early image intensifiers before TV fluoroscopy became popular. The equipment consists of the Z – Shaped support, a tank transformer and a tube. In front of the tube an image amplifier with a vidicon tube. Circa 1954 Philips produced newer device (O-79).
Finally an artistically point of view! (O-494)