The Genius of Louis Pasteur

The first proton magnetic resonance
representations of living
human cross-section were
formed at Brooklyn, New York, July 17,
1977. The event was reported in the
first issue of Fusion magazine, July
1977, and in many other scientific journals.
Recently, the story of this
achievement was the subject of the
book A Machine Called Indomitable.
Only five years earlier, in 1972, a
learned panel of government-sponsored
peers had called the principle of
imaging using proton magnetic resonance
and radio frequency fields a
"physical impossibility." Had Dr. Ray
Damadian, the originator of the concept,
been less persistent or Dr. Paul
Lauterbur been less imaginative, the
whole concept could have ended right
there. Fortunately, Damadian was able
to build a practical machine. Within
months of publication of this momentous
accomplishment, nearly every
major manufacturer of health care
equipment had research and development
teams developing manufacturers'
models of this new technology.
Ray Damadian's persistence very nearly
got buried in the thunderous competition.
Many radiologists sturdily refused to
be involved in research with this dramatic
new imaging modality. But now
many traditionally X-ray-imaging companies
are producing Magnetic Resonance
Imaging instruments (MRI).
More radiologists are familiarizing
themselves with the machine's clinical
potential now that the Food and Drug
Administration has allowed institutions
to charge for clinical use. Use is
increasing as it becomes more familiar.
The circumstances that led to the
continuing difficulties with the introduction
of this new technology are
James Frazer is a pioneer in many
areas of biophysics and biochemistry
and their applications to curing disease.
He works at the University of Texas
Health Science System, M.D. Anderson
Hospital and Tumor Institute,
Houston, Texas.
Viewpoint
Magnetic Resonance
Imaging: Lessons in
Several Directions
by James W. Frazer, Ph.D.
somewhat instructive for those who
think basic science should be a selfsupporting
entity. The originator of the
concept, Dr. Damadian, and the originator
of much of the computer representation,
Dr. Lauterbur, have not
really profited much from the products
of their labor when one considers
their time investment of more than 17
years each (more that 34 man-years) of
private investment for research and
development. Very little federal money
is involved, except health and safety
aspects and efficacy studies, which did
not redound to the benefit of the originators.
Major medical centers are just
beginning to tap the potential of the
instrumentation, and these are using
suppliers other that those of the originators.
Suspicion of Electronic 'Gadgetry'
Suspicion of electronic "gadgetry"
has been prevalent in U.S. medicine
for a long time, partly due to the number
of quack products sold in the early
20th century that had little to do with
curing human ills, but that capitalized
on prevalent public attitudes toward
new electrification networks. Great
enthusiasm for various forms of diathermy
during the 1920s and 1930s justified
some of the suspicion of such
instruments, though they have found
a use, on a vastly reduced scale, in producing
palliative warmth at depth for
treatment of bone and joint pain. The
introduction of antibiotics, first the
sulfa drugs in the 1930s, then penicillin
in the early 1940s, proved much more
efficacious in the treatment of infectious
disease.
As recently as the 1940s, electrocardiograms
were still obtained with a
string galvanometer with optical recording.
The whole instrument was on
a wood table and operated by an automobile
battery. Clinical correlation
between waveforms and findings at
autopsy were still being performed.
Just after World War 11, the electronics
based on World War II developments
became available to persons
graduating from the most massive educational
effort in world history. The
recipients of the "Gl Bill," which kept
many returning servicemen out of the
job market for three to six years,
formed one of the best educated work
forces the world has ever seen. Many
of these people had also benefited
from service training in almost every
imaginable aspect of physical science,
but with a heavy emphasis on electronics.
The core curricula of many
electronics courses for engineers or
technicians still feature some principles
taught in those early service
courses.
Into this educated stage setting were
injected the new mechanisms for research
support—the Atomic Energy
Commission and Office of Naval Research
at first—then the National Institutes
of Health, and a virtual explosion
resulted, building on scientific
developments of the years before
World War II. One of these developments
was phase detection of electronic
signals, which led to maser, later
laser development, and also to commercial
introduction of the magnetic
resonance spectroscopies. These later
instruments saw almost immediate use
in chemistry laboratories in industry,
so that industrial development money
was employed yielding excellent computer-controlled
pulsed, Fourier
transform instruments by the mid-
1970s. These instruments form an intersection
of developments in solid
state electronics: computers; theory
of molecular field interactions; superconducting
materials used to generate
4 September-October 1986 FUSION Viewpoint