Naked to the Bone

Book excerpt: By the late 1960s, the computer and television were linked to produce medical images that were as startling as Roentgen's original X-rays. Computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic reasonance imaging (MRI) made it possible to picture soft tissues invisible to ordinary X-rays. Ultrasound allowed expectant parents to see their unborn children. Positron emission tomography (PET) enabled neuroscientists to map the brain. In this lively history of medical imaging, the first to cover the full scope of the field from X-rays to MRI-assisted surgery, Bettyann Kevles explores the consequences of these developments for medicine and society. Through lucid prose, vivid anecdotes, and more than seventy striking illustrations, she shows how medical imaging has transformed the practice of medicine - from pediatrics to dentistry, neurosurgery to geriatrics, gynecology to oncology. Beyond medicine, Kevles describes how X-rays and the newer technologies have become part of the texture of modern life and culture. They helped undermine Victorian sexual sensibilities, gave courts new forensic tools, provided plots for novels and movies, and offered artists from Picasso to Warhol new ways to depict the human form.