Ultrasound Pioneer Offered Early Glimpses Inside Body
Using an old wartime Navy radar simulator, John J. Wild developed the diagnostic ultrasound machine that would ultimately provide pregnant mothers with the first image of their unborn children.
Dr. Wild, who died Friday at 95, developed the ultrasound technology and techniques in the late 1940s and early '50s. And they remain in use today. Ultrasound fetal monitoring is a standard tool in obstetrics, and it is frequently used to diagnose heart abnormalities.
"The machines you see today are lineal descendents of his devices," says Peter N.T. Wells, a biophysicist and former editor of the journal Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology.
A Briton trained in surgery at University of Cambridge, Dr. Wild became interested in peering inside bodies when he was called on to treat victims of V-1 bombs during World War II. The bomb's shockwave produced distended bowels in victims that could be fatal if not treated, and Dr. Wild realized he needed a tool that could measure the thickness of the bowel wall.
Continuing his research after the war, Dr. Wild moved to the University of Minnesota, where he worked at first with a machine designed to find stress fractures in tank armor and then with a radar simulator at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Minneapolis. Working at first in his own basement, he constructed some of the first echoscopes, as he termed the early devices.
At the time, it wasn't known whether sound waves could cause harm, so Dr. Wild at first aimed his echoscope at a cow kidney his wife had intended to turn into steak and kidney pie. This produced, he later wrote, "the first direct image of soft tissue, and in real time."...
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Dr. Wild, who died Friday at 95, developed the ultrasound technology and techniques in the late 1940s and early '50s. And they remain in use today. Ultrasound fetal monitoring is a standard tool in obstetrics, and it is frequently used to diagnose heart abnormalities.
"The machines you see today are lineal descendents of his devices," says Peter N.T. Wells, a biophysicist and former editor of the journal Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology.
A Briton trained in surgery at University of Cambridge, Dr. Wild became interested in peering inside bodies when he was called on to treat victims of V-1 bombs during World War II. The bomb's shockwave produced distended bowels in victims that could be fatal if not treated, and Dr. Wild realized he needed a tool that could measure the thickness of the bowel wall.
Continuing his research after the war, Dr. Wild moved to the University of Minnesota, where he worked at first with a machine designed to find stress fractures in tank armor and then with a radar simulator at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Minneapolis. Working at first in his own basement, he constructed some of the first echoscopes, as he termed the early devices.
At the time, it wasn't known whether sound waves could cause harm, so Dr. Wild at first aimed his echoscope at a cow kidney his wife had intended to turn into steak and kidney pie. This produced, he later wrote, "the first direct image of soft tissue, and in real time."...