A Gentleman´s Crazy Idea
The history of computed tomography
In London, in fall 1971, a radiologist and an engineer found themselves jumping up and down for joy – as one of them later recalled – “like football players who had just scored a winning goal.” In their hands, the two researchers were holding a completely new type of X-ray image – known as a tomogram – that depicted a human brain in unprecedented quality. Indeed, looking at the image, the radiologist, James Ambrose, could see his 41-year-old patient’s brain “in a great deal more detail than we’d expected” and could clearly make out the cortex, the spaces filled with cerebrospinal fluid, and even the white matter.

The engineer, Godfrey Hounsfield, had developed the new X-ray technology almost single-handedly.

The prototype of the first CT scanner set a new course for the development of X-ray technology
Source: Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library

The preproduction model of SIRETOM in 1975

Left side: One of the first images of the brain taken with the prototype of the SIRETOM CT scanner from Siemens. Right side: A clinical image generated from CT data using Cinematic Rendering