Gustav Bucky | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | February 19, 1963 82) | (aged
Known for | Bucky diaphragm |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Radiology |
Gustav Peter Bucky (September 3, 1880 [note 1] - February 19, 1963) was a German-American radiologist who made early contributions to X-ray technique. The Bucky diaphragm and the subsequent Bucky-Potter grid, devices that prevent scattered X-ray particles from reaching the X-ray film, are named for him.
Bucky spent significant portions of his career in both Germany and the United States. He was close friends with Albert Einstein and shared a patent with him for a self-adjusting camera.
Bucky was born in Leipzig. He wanted to become an engineer, but his parents steered him toward medical school. [1] He studied medicine in Geneva and Leipzig, graduating from medical school in 1906 after completing a thesis on the mechanisms of the movement of paratyphus from lymph and blood vessels to the gastrointestinal tract. [2]
Since the mid-1890s, physicians had been struggling with a factor that limited the usefulness of X-rays: When X-ray particles hit part of a patient's body, secondary particles were released, scattered and hit the X-ray field, contributing to blurry X-ray images. In 1913, Bucky invented a system of two plates with grids on them. One plate was placed between the X-ray beam and the patient, and the other was placed between the patient and the film. The grids ensured that the secondary particles stayed in columns rather than scattering across the X-ray field. The Bucky diaphragm reduced the blur of X-ray images, but it caused grid lines to appear on the films. [3]
Bucky made a presentation to the German Roentgen Society about his new invention and he secured patents in both the U.S. and Germany. [3] Bucky came to the U.S. in 1923, and he was the seventh physician granted an honorary New York state medical license without being required to take the licensure examination. However, after World War I, forfeiture laws affected citizens of the Central Powers and caused Bucky to lose the rights to his patent, so he missed out on any earnings that he could have received for his invention of the Bucky diaphragm. An American radiologist, Hollis E. Potter, modified the grids from Bucky's invention, making them movable so that the lines did not show up on the X-ray image. [3]
In 1929, Bucky took a position in Germany as the radiology department head at Rudolf Virchow Hospital. [1] Returning to the U.S. in 1933 for political reasons, [1] he became close friends with Albert Einstein in the course of providing medical treatment to Einstein's wife Elsa. Einstein had also moved from Germany to the U.S. not long before that. [4] Bucky tried to recoup some of his financial losses by patenting modifications of existing imaging technologies. He was often sued for patent infringement, and the normally private Einstein used his patent expertise to help Bucky out of these situations. [3]
In 1935, Bucky and Einstein jointly filed a patent application for a camera that self-adjusted the amount of light that was let into the photographic plate. A few years later, Kodak introduced an automatic camera called the Super Six-20, but the two cameras operate on different principles. [5] In June 1940, Bucky and his wife Frida were the signatory witnesses to Einstein's petition for naturalization requesting U.S. citizenship. [6] Bucky and Einstein remained very close, and Bucky was present when Einstein was on his deathbed. [3]
Bucky died in 1963 and he was survived by his wife Frida and two children. [1] In 1967, Bucky's widow decided to auction off a collection of letters from Einstein to Gustav Bucky. One of Bucky's children, Peter A. Bucky, was preparing to write a memoir about the family's relationship with Einstein and he tried to buy the letters, but the collection sold for more than $35,000 and he was outbid. [7]
Peter A. Bucky later published his memoir, titled The Private Albert Einstein. [8] Frida Bucky, who had written several children's songs, lived until 1974, when she was 91 years old. [9]
Radiography is an imaging technique using X-rays, gamma rays, or similar ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation to view the internal form of an object. Applications of radiography include medical and industrial radiography. Similar techniques are used in airport security,. To create an image in conventional radiography, a beam of X-rays is produced by an X-ray generator and it is projected towards the object. A certain amount of the X-rays or other radiation are absorbed by the object, dependent on the object's density and structural composition. The X-rays that pass through the object are captured behind the object by a detector. The generation of flat two-dimensional images by this technique is called projectional radiography. In computed tomography, an X-ray source and its associated detectors rotate around the subject, which itself moves through the conical X-ray beam produced. Any given point within the subject is crossed from many directions by many different beams at different times. Information regarding the attenuation of these beams is collated and subjected to computation to generate two-dimensional images on three planes which can be further processed to produce a three-dimensional image.
Radiology is the medical specialty that uses medical imaging to diagnose diseases and guide their treatment, within the bodies of humans and other animals. It began with radiography, but today it includes all imaging modalities, including those that use no ionizing electromagnetic radiation, as well as others that do, such as computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and nuclear medicine including positron emission tomography (PET). Interventional radiology is the performance of usually minimally invasive medical procedures with the guidance of imaging technologies such as those mentioned above.
Medical imaging is the technique and process of imaging the interior of a body for clinical analysis and medical intervention, as well as visual representation of the function of some organs or tissues (physiology). Medical imaging seeks to reveal internal structures hidden by the skin and bones, as well as to diagnose and treat disease. Medical imaging also establishes a database of normal anatomy and physiology to make it possible to identify abnormalities. Although imaging of removed organs and tissues can be performed for medical reasons, such procedures are usually considered part of pathology instead of medical imaging.
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To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
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