When you hear the word gamma, what do you think of? In most cases we all think of a green fellow with an outstanding physique and a bit of an anger control issue. In the imaging world we have a completely different use for the word gamma. What was a big change for X-Rays in the 1950’s? The big change was the gamma camera, which did not rely on continuous motion.
The gamma camera carries with it some very interesting history. According to radiology-schools.com the gamma camera was major in terms of better image contrast and organ visualization. The device itself was invented in the 1950’s by a young genius, Hal O. Anger. During the beginning, gamma cameras were not used in every single X- Ray room in America, today the story is different.
A Little on Anger
When we think about inventors that changed the course of science we tend to imagine people that have been dead for close to 100 years. Names like Marconi come to mind when imagining the pioneers that 
Hal O. Anger is widely considered to be the person that shaped the future of nuclear medicine with his invention. Anger’s camera was able to track cell and organism movement, giving doctors a clearer idea of what they were looking at. X-Rays might have been a “wondrous” invention for people to marvel at during the end of the 1800’s but Hal O. Anger made it something necessary for the treatment of everything from broken bones, to complex illness.
If you have any questions about X-Rays, imaging of any kind or procedures such as MRIs, and CT scans please feel free to contact us at any time. We here at Amber Diagnostics look forward to taking your call and answering your questions.
Posted by:
Nathan Welch
MRI, CT & PET/CT Specialist
407.438.7847
Nathan@amberusa.com
References:
http://www.radiology-schools.com/radiology-history.html
http://www.petnm.unimelb.edu.au/nucmed/overview/history.html
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/beamline/25/2/25-2-assmus.pdf
http://www.snm.org/index.cfm?PageID=4577
