Manuel R. Mourino, PhD

From Thales to Lauterbur, or From the Lodestoneto MR Imaging: Magnetism and Medicine’

Historical Perspective

then, from the heart of one of thosenew lights,/there came a voice thatdrew me to itself,/(I was the needlepointing to the star) [DANTE, TheDivine Comedy, Vol III: Paradise, xii,28-301

P EOPLE have been aware of magne-tism from the earliest times.

Their attempts to understand, andexplain, this phenomenon have en-gendered and/or abetted religiouspersecution, a proof that the earth isround, elixirs of life, cures for epi-lepsy, devices to explore the earthand navigate its seas, the French Rev-olution, and an instrument that cangenerate three-dimensional views ofthe internal organs of living creatures.Quite often, those searchers werephysicians.. . and other odd charac-ters.

The record of the discovery in theWestern world of the first magneticsubstance-a poem by Nicander ofColophon (2nd century BC)-is

known from a footnote in HistoriaeNaturalis XXXVII, the 37-volumework of the Roman naturalist Plinythe Elder (23-79 AD). Circa 1000 BC, theshepherd Magnes, the eponymousprogenitor of the Magnetes (Magne-sians), was walking on Mount Ida inthe Troad in Mysia (now Turkey).Suddenly, he was strongly drawn tothe earth by the tacks in his sandals.He dug to ascertain the cause and dis-covered magnetite (the mineral lode-

Index terms: Magnetic resonance (MR) #{149}Ra-

diology and radiologists, history

Radiology 1991; 180:593-612

From the Department of Radiology, NewYork University Medical Center, 560 First Aye,New York, NY 10016. Received January 11, 1991;revision requested February 22; revision re-ceived April 1; accepted May 13. Address re-

print requests to the author.#{176}RSNA, 1991

stone-a magnetic oxide of iron:Fe304). This, legend has it, is how theinhabitants of the foothills of MountIda, consecrated to the Mother of theGods (Ida), came to be the first to dis-cover and work iron and why, in theancient world, Magnesia ad Sipylum(home of the Magnetes) was a sourceof magnets (‘� Ma’yvfrrLff XCOoa [mag-netis lithos], meaning the Magnesianstone) or lodestones (lead stones-stones that point the way).

For over 2,000 years the ability oflodestones to attract iron filings andthe ability of amber rods whenrubbed with fur to attract small piecesof paper, foil, and other lightweightobjects were considered manifesta-tions of the same phenomenon. Themechanisms of magnetism and elec-trostatics were considered to be con-substantial. The consequences of thishave reverberated throughout his-tory.

What is the nature of the lodestoneaccording to the early Greeks and Ro-mans? The answer is in De Rerum Nat-ura (On the nature of things), the onlysurviving work of the Roman poetTitus Lucretius Cams (96-55 BC); thetheme is the atomistic theory formedby the Greek philosophers Leukippos(ca 500 BC), Demokritos (460-370 BC),

and Epicurus (341-270 BC). Withinthat theory, the atomus (Latin for theGreek, a [not] + temon [cut])-theuncuttable, innumerable, indivisible,ever-moving unit of matter-was theultimate constituent of the world. InDe Rerum Natura, Lucretius states that“if you think atoms can stop theircourse, refrain from movement, andby cessation cause new kinds of mo-tion, you are far astray indeed. Sincethere is void through which theymove, all fundamental motes must beimpelled, either by their own weightor by some force outside them.” Thus,for a lodestone to attract iron it must“emit a dense stream or emanation ofatoms, which dispels by a process ofbombardment all the air that lies be-

I��IUHi8CCE

IIU

tween the [lodejstone and the iron.When this space is emptied and alarge tract in the middle is left void,then atoms of the iron . . . slide andtumble into the vacuum . . . the[whole mass] itself follows . . . the airsituated at the back of the [wholemass] pushes and shoves it forwardfrom behind.” Why are some materi-

als immune from the lodestone’s ef-fects? “Some are held fast by theirweight . . . gold. Others cannot bemoved anywhere, because their loosetexture [due to the large air spacesbetween the atoms that form them]allows the effluence [emanation ofatoms from the lodestone] to passthrough intact . . . wood.”

The “stream of atoms” from thelodestone was put to artistic use inEgypt in one of the most grandiosebuilding projects ever. Deinokrates(ca ?-278 iic)-the Macedonian or,possibly, Rhodian architect to Alex-ander the Great (356-323 BC)-is cred-ited by Pliny the Elder in HistoriaeNaturalis XXX VII with designing forthe Pharaoh of Egypt Ptolemy 11(309-247 BC), the Arsinoeon, a temple inhonor of his full sister/second wife/sister-in-law/stepmother-to-his-first-wife Arsinoe II Philadelphos (ca 316-270 BC. In it, her iron cult statue wasto be levitated by means of a vault oflodestone (she did, after all, love[4�i.X�o, phileo] her brother [#{226}8#{128}X4xSa,adelphos] well). According to Pliny,Deinokrate’s death put a halt to thatphase of the project. His demise mayhave been opportune. It is highly im-probable (in fact, inconceivable) thatnaturally occurring lodestone couldbe arranged in the form of a vault toaccomplish this architect’s vision.Who knows how Ptolemy II wouldhave reacted to Deinokrate’s failure?

The Arsinoeon was not the first ofDeinokrate’s building projects that

Abbreviations:NMR = nuclear magnetic reso-

nance, RF = radio frequency.

593

594 #{149}Radiology September 1991

was associated with, or marred by,death. He created the plan for thefoundation of the city in which Alex-ander would eventually be en-tombed-Alexandria (332 BC). Thehecatomb, or funeral pyre, that heconstructed in Babylon for Hephaes-tion (ca 356-324 BC, Alexander’s lover)has itself become legend. His programto transform Mount Athos in theChalcidice Peninsula in northeasternGreece into a colossal statue of Alex-ander (height, 6,670 feet [2,032 m]),holding in one hand a city and in theother a goblet from which the moun-tam streams might flow into the sea,was halted (only!) by Alexander’sdeath.

The Greeks and the Romans sensedthat lodestones could be put to practi-cal use. They also knew that theycould be dangerous. The Alexandrianastronomer Ptolemy (2nd century)writes in Geography: “And there arereported to be as well ten more is-lands in a row, called the Manoliai[that is to say, beyond the island ofIabadiou, which is generally taken tobe Sumatra or Java, or perhaps Malaymistaken for an island], amid whichthey say that boats having iron nailsare held in check, perhaps becausethe Stone of Heracles [Hercules, thelodestone] is native there, and for thisreason shipbuilding is done intrenches.” A similar phenomenon isreported in The Arabian Nights-TheTale of the Third Kalendar (Beggar): “to-morrow we will come to an isle ofblack rocks called the MagneticMountain, against which the force ofthe water will dash us and destroyour ship. All her nails will fly from herand cleave to the sides of the Mag-netic Mountain.. . and all the thou-sands of nails on our ten ships weresuddenly wrenched away and flew tojoin themselves to the mountain. Theship opened out and fell asunder, andwe were thrown into the sea.”

One could build with lodestones.One could destroy with them. Couldone use them to heal? Thales of Mile-tus (636?-546? BC), generally consid-ered to be one of the founders ofWestern philosophy, regarded thesoul as somehow producing motion.Hence, he postulated (if one believesAristotle [384-322 BC]) that both themagnet, which moves iron, and am-ber, which attracts cloth and paper,possess a soul. This is the first tenuouslink between man’s nature and theseinanimate materials, and it is the pri-mum mobile of the uncountableclaims that have appeared through-out history of the medical propertiesof the lodestone and amber. By 200

AD, Greek physicians were prescribingamber pills to stop hemorrhages, andthe priests of Samothrace were sellingmagnetic rings as a cure for arthritis.Many more medical cures based onthese two materials were to follow,but first, lodestones had to be put tothe service of the True Faith.

Saint Augustine (354-430), the greatphilosopher of the early Christianchurch, included a factual summaryof the early knowledge of electrostat-ics and magnetism in his magnumopus De Civitate Dei (The city of God),which he finished writing in 428. In it,he says that his “observation . . . [that]. . . the magnet, which by its mysteri-ous and sensible suction attracts theiron . . . has no effect on straw,” puz-zled him greatly and led him to theconclusion that “if such common phe-nomena be inexplicable . . . whyshould it be demanded of man that heexplain miracles by human reason?”Given that the book De Civitate Deiwas one of the fundamental theologi-cal works of the early Christianchurch, it has been argued that mag-netic phenomena were one of the rea-sons empirical scientific research wassuppressed in the Western world un-til the flourishing of religious plural-ism in the 16th century.

In 1289, Peter Peregrinus wrote thefirst great treatise on magnetism, Epis-tola Petri Peregrini de Maricourt adSygerum de Foucaucourt, Militem, DeMagnete (Fig 1). In it he tells thereader to perform the following ex-periment: Round a lodestone; take aniron needle and place it over thestone; draw a line on the stone alongthe direction of the needle, thus di-viding the stone along the middle;repeat this procedure at many otherplaces over the surface of the stone. Ifthe reader does this, Peregrinus saysthat the reader will find the lines willconcentrate at two points on thestone, just as the meridians of theearth come together at opposite geo-graphic points. By analogy to astron-omy, he named the convergencepoints after the axis of revolution of asphere (as in the firmament): ii#{243}Xor(polos), or poles. The one that pointedto the north celestial pole (or so hethought) he named the “north pole”;its complement he named the “southpole.” The Epistola also contains thefirst description in the Western worldof a compass and how it can be usedfor sea navigation. Peregrmnus’ manu-script is the first extant example of thescientific or experimental method. Init, all questioning of a phenomenon isdone without calling on any super-natural agencies. The Epistola became

Figure 1. A page from Peregrinus’ treatise

on magnetism. It contains the first drawing

and description of the compass in the West-

em world. The compass points, Septemtri-ones, Meridiens, Oriens, and Occidens, refer,

respectively, to what we now call the Little

Bear (Ursa Minor) constellation (in Roman

times, the seven [septem] plough-oxen [hi-

ones]), whose brightest star is Polaris (the

North Star); noon or midday (Latin, medius/

dies), as the sun at its zenith (noon), always

appears due south in the northern hemi-

sphere; the constellation Orion (Latin,

Oriens), whose brightest star, Betelgeuse,

appears in the northern hemisphere in the

geographical east, in the winter before sun-

set, and in the summertime before dawn;

and evening (Latin, occidens-sunset, the

west). The modern names of the compass

points-north, south, east, and west-are of

Teutonic origin and first appear in Old En-

glish texts circa 800 AD.

the paradigm for all of the scientifictreatises that followed it. The date ofpublication of this great work weknow only because at its end, Peregri-nus states, “Completed in camp, atthe siege of Lucera, in the year of ourLord 1289, eighth day of August.” Ithas been conjectured that at the timehe wrote this he was an engineer inthe employ of the King of Sicily-theman who was laying siege to Lucera.Most probably then, the honorific title“Peregrinus” or “Pilgrim” (his fullname appears to have been Pierre deMaricourt) was given to him by thePope for his participation in that siege(as a Crusader) and not for havinggone on a pilgrimage to the HolyLand. Nothing else is known of hislife.

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}595

Figure 2. Theophrastus Bombast von Ho-

henheim, or Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus.This portrait was done by his contemporary,

the Venetian painter and Mannerist master

Tintoretto Uacopo Robusti, 1518-1594).

A contemporary of Peregrinus, thescholar and Franciscan monk RogerBacon (1220-1292) greatly praised theEpistola. For his scientific teachings,heresies, and attempts to bring thesciences into the curriculum of uni-versity studies, Bacon was torturedand imprisoned by the Catholicchurch. No one knows how theChurch responded to Peregrmnus’Epistola.

An astonishing number of beliefshad adhered to magnetism by the endof the Middle Ages: Magnets coulddraw gold from wells; garlic had thepower to destroy magnetism; a mag-net carried on a person could curearthritis and gout, draw poison fromwounds, and cure baldness; whensprinkled on water, magnets spokewith a voice like that of an infant.These myths, and many more, werecodified, amplified, and brought tobear on the systematic treatment ofdisease by a man whose name hasbecome synonymous with hyper-bole-Theophrastus Bombast von Ho-henheim (aka Philippus AureolusParacelsus, 1493-1541) (Fig 2), doctorand alchemist. Paracelsus denouncedGalenic medicine (he and his studentspublicly burned the works of the phy-sician Galen [129-199 or 130-200]). Heintroduced the use of arsenic, mer-cury, sulfur, and other chemicals intothe treatment of disease (especiallymercury treatments for syphilis).Asepsis during surgery was one of histeachings. For these actions and views(and many others), he was widely

AVTHORIS CaRM�N

Nonmeterrateget,ccdo.fcd raptus in altOIlluflTisuiuam do#{226}aper orauirum:

Qjxicquiduenturis fpe�abitPbcubusinaflIil3�Cardanosnofc4nomcn &uf�mcuzn�

Figure 3. Girolamo Cardano. Astrology ledhim to believe that he would not live to see

45 years of age, and hence he spent his early

life in riotous living. Later he wrote books

discussing why the prediction had beenwrong: “It was when I ought to have died

that I really began to live.” His writings onmathematics are a major contribution to the

development of algebra. A contradictory

soul, he presumed to cast the horoscope ofChrist; yet, in the fall of 1575-near the end

of his life-he wrote in his autobiography,“One thing alone provides satisfaction to me:to understand and grasp the meaning of allthe wonders of the world would be moreprecious to me than the everlasting domin-ion of the universe; this I swear by all that isholy.” This engraving and its pendant poem

are the frontispiece of an edition of De Subtil-itate that appeared in 1560. The poem’s senti-ments express Cardano’s sense of self-worth:“The earth will not cover me, but carried offinto high heaven shall I be/Celebrated will I

live through the mouths of learned men:!Wherever The Sun shall look in the years tocome,/There He will see Cardano and hisname.”

criticized and mockingly referred toas “Paracelsus,” meaning “greaterthan Celsus” (ca 25 Bc-50 AD, an earlyRoman medical authority). He likedthe nickname and adopted it. Paracel-sus combined mysticism with hispractical, empirical medical treat-ments. In his work Volumen MedicinaeParamirum, he writes that every per-son is a magnet, “possessing a mag-netic power by which he may attractcertain effluvia of a good and evilquantity in the same manner as amagnet will attract iron.” Elsewhere,he asserts that the lodestone “attractsall martial humours that are in thehuman system.” Thus, for example,since the front (north) pole of a mag-net attracts and its back (south) polerepels, in cases of nervous “epilepsywhere there is a greater determina-

tion of nervous fluid towards thebrain, the repulsing pole of a magnetis [should be] applied to the spineand to the head, and the attractingpole of other magnets to the abdomi-nal region” in order to effect a cure.Paracelsus’ teachings in the form of“animal magnetism” appear in thescientific works of the 16th, 17th, and18th centuries. Attempts to provethem correct, and Paracelsus’ claimthat magnets were a prime ingredientin his “elixir of life,” spurred muchresearch during those times. Paracel-sus died in poverty at age 48. Onestory states that he died of a stroke;another states that he was murderedby agents of the physicians andapothecaries he had denounced. Con-sidering the man’s nature, it is likelyhe would prefer us to believe the lat-ter version.

By the middle of the 16th century,attempts were being made to under-stand and to separate magnetic phe-nomena and the “amber effect.” In histreatise De Subtilitate (On subtlety)(1550), the Italian mathematician andphysician Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) (Fig 3) listed his evidence ofwhy “the magnet stone and the am-ber do not attract in the same way.”His studies were driven by his interestin the claim that amber had medicinalproperties and led him to postulatethat all matter contains “humours”and that the absorption and exuda-tion of these humours by matter ac-counts for its attraction or repulsionto another type of matter. The princi-ple of humours was applied to thebody’s organs (eg, in the context ofmagnetism: animal magnetism) andto the treatment of disease (eg, again,in the context of magnetism: mesmer-ism) well into the 18th century. Car-dano’s career as a physician was ifiledwith tribulation. At one point in hislife he was deprived of the legal rightto practice medicine by the Milanesemedical association. Many of his trialswere of his own making. That this isso can be deduced from the title ofthe first of the 200-odd books that hewrote: De Malo Recentiorum MedicorumLIsu Libellus (On the bad practice ofmedicine in common use) (Venice,1536).

William Gilbert (1544-1603) (Fig4)-fellow and president of the RoyalCollege of Physicians and the per-sonal physician of Queen Elizabeth Iof England (1533-1603)-built on Car-dano’s work and in 1600 produced hisbook De Magnete Magneticisque Corpor-ibus et de Magno Magnete Tellure Phys-iologia Nova (On the lodestone, mag-netic bodies, and on the great magnet

Figure 5. (a) Frontispiece of Gilbert’s book Dc Magnete. The drawing of a serpent twined

about a tau cross that appears on this page was then used extensively by physicians as a sort

of identifying crest. Its origin are two biblical quotes. The first-Numbers 21:4-9-details the

origin of the serpent: “the people complained . . . In punishment the Lord sent among the

people saraph serpents [horned vipers?], which bit the people so that many of them died ...

Moses prayed . . . the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a saraph serpent and mount it on a pole, and

if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover’ . . .“ The second-John 3:14-15-

makes the link between the serpent and the image of the True Cross: “And as Moses lifted up

the serpent in the desert, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that those who believe in

him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” Over time, and in a fashion that is not

clear-possibly influenced by the Renaissance alchemical association of Christ with the Egyp-

tian god Thoth (in Greek, Hermes Trismegistus [Hermes the Thrice Greatest])-this symbol

became conflated with two forms of the caduceus: the Askiepian caduceus, which is a clublike

staff with a single serpent coiled about it (the true symbol of the medical profession), and the

badge of the Greek god-and herald for the gods-Hermes, originally a straight branch from

whose tip two curling, twisted twigs grew (in form, a dowser’s rod), which, through oriental-

izing influences, was transformed into a snake-entwined branch. Hermes’ caduceus-the

American symbol of the medical profession-has no medical relevance whatsoever. In DeMagnefe, Gilbert illustrates (b) the method then used for making artificial (iron) lodestones:

“Get a smith to shape a mass [of iron] .. . on the anvil.. . Let the smith stand facing north

[Septentrio, cf Fig 1], with back to the south [Auster, the Austral (Southern) Winds], so that as

he hammers the red-hot iron it may have a motion of extension northward .. . have him keep

the same point of the iron looking north, and lay the finished bar aside in the same direction

when [the bar is] afloat [being passed through suitable pieces of cork, it] will move about

the water, and, when the end is duly reached, will point north.”

a. b.

596 #{149}Radiology September 1991

Figure 4. William Gilbert, writer of De Mag-nete, of whom the English scientist Joseph

Priestly (1733-1804, discoverer of oxygen)

said, “may justly be called the father of mod-

em electricity, though it be true that he left

his child in its very infancy.” In truth, he also

inspired a novel method of seduction. The

English dramatist and poet Ben Jonson (c

1572-1637) wrote his most famous play, The

Alchemist, not long after the publication of DeMagnete. In it, he advises that “Beneath your

threshold, bury me a load-stone,/To draw in

gallants, that wear spurres: the rest,/They’ll

seeme to follow.” This portrait of Gilbert by

an unknown artist is based on the engraving

made in 1796 by R. Clamp (late 18th century),

which itself is copy of a portrait of Gilbert

(now lost) that is said to have been paintedin 1591 by Cornelis Janssens (1593-1661, not

very likely). Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), in

his History of the Worthies of England (1662),

writes of Gilbert that “such his loyality to the

Queen that as if unwilling to survive, he

dyed in the same year with her 1603. Hisstature was Tall, Complexion Cheerful!, an

Happiness not ordinary in so hard a Student

and retired a Person . . . Mahomet’s tomb at

Mecha is said strangely to hang up, attracted

by some invisible Loadstone; but the Mem-

ory of this Doctor will never fall to the

Ground, which his incomparable book DeMagnete will support to Eternity.”

the earth) (Fig 5). This book was thefirst important work in physical sci-ence to be published in England andcan be regarded as the beginning ofthe modern science of electricity.Gilbert, like Cardano, makes a verystrong distinction between magne-tism and the “amber effect.” When hefound that a large number of sub-stances when rubbed with silk or furwill attract light objects, he gave themthe generic name “electrics.” Hecoined this term from the Greek namefor amber, ‘�#{128}i’z’rpov,or electron. Oneof the principal pieces of apparatusthat Gilbert used in his researches wasa large spherical lodestone, which hecalled a “terella”-a miniature earth.

With this lodestone and a compass, hedemonstrated that the behavior of amariner’s compass could be explainedby assuming that the earth is itself alarge magnet. With this hypothesisand his experiments, Gilbert createdthe science of terrestrial magnetism.On his death, Gilbert’s lessers tried toplace their escutcheon on his accom-plishments. He was fortunate-a fel-low physician preserved his honor.

William Barlow (ca 1540-1625) en-tered holy orders in 1573 and had abrilliant ministerial career-when hedied he was Archdeacon of Salisbury.The numerous ecclesiastical favorsthat he received throughout his lifewere due, in part, to his being the sonof a bishop and to his four sisters be-ing married to bishops. He was liter-ally deeply ensconced in the bosom ofthe Church of England. Barlow’s twoscientific interests were complemen-tary: navigation and magnetism. Thefirst product of his scientific pursuits

was the book The Navigator’s Supply:Containing many things of principall im-portance belonging to Navigation, withthe description and use of diverse instru-ments framed chiefly for that purpose; butserving also for sundry other of cosmogra-phy in generall: The particular instru-ments are specified on the next page (Lon-don, 1597). In it, he describes in cleartechnical prose geographic terms (me-ridian, equator, latitude, longitude,etc), the use of the compass, and theuse of early forms of the quadrantand the sextant. Barlow’s second bookwas Magneticall advertisements: or,Divers pertinent observations, and ap-

proved experiments concerning the natureand properties of the load-stone: Verypleasant for knowledge, and most needfullfor practise, of travelling, or framing ofinstruments fit for travellers both by seaand land (London, 1616) (Fig 6). It is animportant contribution to the devel-opment of artificial magnets, for in ithe points out a basic difference be-

L o s DO N�

PriMed by tIwm’J &ifr for r�*.eh,, Swi.w, andsg�ldarbisthopioPm.bCburCb-yadr

sbetipc�ftbc8uIl�bea.i. i6i6. �.

a.

Figure 6. William Barlow’s contributions to magnetic lore could be easily missed except for

the notoriety he achieved with his attempt to usurp Gilbert’s eminence in the field of magne-

tism. (a) In his book Magneticall advertisements, he notes the difference in the magnetic proper-

ties of iron and steel; by mistranslating from the Latin text of De Magnete the word ‘electric”as “electricall,” he coined a new word; through his dedication of the book to a courtier, whom

he compares to a magnet because the courtier is of “so pleasing a carriage toward evene man,

as causeth al good men which know [him] to love [him] by force of a natural sympathy,” he

hatched one of the most fearsome creatures that has ever been-the politician with a “mag-

netic personality.” The symbolism of the escutcheon on the book’s title page is obscure. One

of the twinned snakes (left) wears a crown on its head. This identifies it as a basilisk-a crea-

ture whose breath was so foul that inhaling one puff of it meant death. The only method ofkilling a basilisk was to make it see its own hideous reflection. Is Barlow making an indirect

reference to M(arke) Ridley with this distorted form of a physician’s crest-identifying him

with the basilisk? Are we to interpret the escutcheon as Barlow’s intent of vanquishing Ridley

by making him see in the reflecting mirror of knowledge (represented by the owl) his heinous

act (and self)? We will never be completely certain. (b) However, the title page of his answer

to Ridley’s charges, A Brief discovery of the idle animadversions of Marke Ridley, contains a quote-

“moneat Cornicula risum, Furtinis nudata celoribus,” or, “let the Horned One beware of ridi-

cule, for the theft which was hidden is exposed”-which leaves one in no doubt of his percep-

tion of Ridley at the time of its publication.

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}597

MAGNF�TICALLAduercifenlen:s:

OR

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tween steel and iron: “steele is farre

better than yron, and receiveth a farrestronger touch [magnetization]...The purer the steele, so much the bet-ter. . .“ Barlow’s impetus for publish-ing this book appears to have been amixture of anxiety, jealousy, andpride. In the book’s dedicatory pas-sages he alludes to early drafts of thebook having been “either mislaied orembeseled” and that as a conse-quence he has “met with many por-traitures of [his] Magneticall imple-ments.. . in print in another mansname.” He goes on to list those menwho urged him to publish his work,naming among them Gilbert. Indeed,he states that he “may be bold to chal-lenge a right, as having endevouredto get some insight in this argument

ABREIFE DIS.COVERY OF THE

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[magnetism] .. . above the space oftwenty years ere Doctor Gilberts booksaw light.” The degree of truth in thisclaim will never be known. He neverchallenged Gilbert’s priority while DeMagnete’s author lived, and with theexception of the description of thedifferences in the properties of steeland iron, all of the topics that Barlowdiscusses in his book-how to magne-tize needles, cap magnets, cement(join) loadstones, and use the com-pass-form a subset of those dealtwith in Gilbert’s book. For example,Barlow singles out for censure onlyone magnetic medical cure-the onethat Gilbert criticizes in his book. Bar-low deplores the”.. . great error ofthose Phisitions and Surgeons, whichto remedy ruptures, doe prescribe

unto their Patients to take pouder of aLodestone inwardly, and the smallfilings of iron mingled in someplaister outwardly: supposing thatherein the magneticall drawingshould do great wonders.” Gilbertattributes whatever medicinal effectthis remedy has to the poultice which“heal[s] . . . the ruptured tissues byexcication [drying out].” The onlyconcrete evidence that Barlow offersto establish his right to precedence isa letter from Gilbert to Barlow (in-cluded in the book!) that contains thispassage: “you [Barlow] have shewedme [Gilbert] more; and brought morelight than any man hath done.” TheOxford antiquarian and historian An-thony a Wood (1632-1695) says thatBarlow was “accounted superior, or atleast equal, to that doctor [Gilbert] fora happy finder out of many rare andmagnetical secrets.” Unfortunately forBarlow, Wood’s support was posthu-mous, and it was said of Wood “ thathe’d never spake well of any man.”However, his chief detractor was im-mediate; his nemesis-the wrongdoerhe alludes to in Magneticall Advertise-

ments ‘ dedication-the physicianMark Ridley (1560-1624).

Barlow’s life was the antithesis ofRidley’s. The cleric led a sedentarylife, never venturing out onto the seathe charting and navigation of whichbecame his true life’s work. Thehealer began his medical career asphysician to the English merchantsresident in Muscovy (Moscow). Thenhe was appointed the chief physicianof the tsar, Theodore (1584-1598). Hismedical skills and personal charmmust have been considerable, for notonly did he survive the tsar’s deathbut he also returned to England in1598 with many compliments fromthe new tsar, Boris Fedorovich Go-dunov (1552-1605). He settled in prac-tice in London, where he achievedprofessional renown. In 1613, Ridleypublished a book that greatly alarmedBarlow: A Short treatise of magneticallbodies and motions (London, 1613) (Fig7). It is a practical review and an am-plification of the magnetic experi-ments in Gilbert’s book written in anarticulate and straightforward prosestyle. Barlow published Magneticalladvertisements-and his thinly veiledcharge of plagiarism by Ridley-3years after the appearance of Ridley’sbook. The return volley came in theform of Magneticall animadversions(criticisms) upon certaine magneticalladvertisements from W. Barlow (Lon-don, 1617), in which Ridley accusesBarlow of plagiarizing all that appearsin his book from De Magnete and from

a. b.

Figure 7. Dr Mark Ridley appears to have been a very good self-promoter. The title page of

his book A Short treatise of magneticall bodies and motions (a) declares him to be a “Doctor in phi-

sicke and Phiosophie Lately Physition to the Emperour of Russia, and one of eight principals

or Elects of the Colledge of Physitions in London.” In case the book’s readers missed the mes-sage, it was repeated on the frontespiece of the book (b), which displays Ridley’s handsome

likeness at age 34 years on a shield with a border that proclaims him to be “Mark Ridley of

Cambridge (Cantabrigiensis), Doctor (Archiatrus) to the Russian Emperor.” His coat of arms is

emblazoned in the shield, which itself is surrounded by scientific instruments and symbols oflearning. Below this imposing composition are inscribed the words “Missus ab Elisa Ruthenis

quinque per annos/Anglis ni desis (de sis?) te vocat illa domum/Tute matematicis clams mag-netica calles/Promas[?] laudes doctus ubique capis.” (“Sent by Elizabeth to the Russians for

five years/In order that you not fail in your duty to the English she called you home/You are

famous in mathematics and skilled in magnets/May you prove [?] your praises wherever you

receive them.”) Clearly, Ridley had much in common with Cardan (cf Fig 3).

598 #{149}Radiology September 1991

Ridley’s own work. The reply was ABrief discovery of the idle animadversionsofMarke Ridley (Fig 6) (London,1618)-a 13-page salvo in which Bar-low shrieks out his charge againstRidley, points out all that he perceivesto be in error in Ridley’s book, lists hisown unique discoveries on the natureof magnetism (unlisted are the dif-ferent magnetic properties of steeland iron), slyly accuses Ridley of her-esy (like Gilbert, Ridley was a Coper-nican, something which the religiousBarlow was definitely not: “[Gilbert’s]sixt Booke, entreating of the motionof the earth, I thinke there is no manliving farther from beleeving it, thanmy selfe . . .“), and questions Ridley’stitle of chief physician to the tsar! InBarlow’s words, “except this Ridley,has ploughed with my Heifor, heehad not knowne my Riddle [a sieve toseparate chaff from grain].”

Who was telling the truth? Gilbert,the one person who could have an-swered this question, had died 12years before the beginning of this ar-gument. Both men lay claim to frater-nizing with “Doctor Gilbert, ourfriend and Collegiat” (a phrase fromRidley’s book). The difference in thespirit in which the two authors wrotetheir books makes one hope that Rid-ley was telling the truth. WhereasBarlow marshalls the powers ofheaven into his ranks-”To theReader: This booke was written by aBishops sonne,/And by affinitie tomany Bishops kinne:fHimself a godlyPastour, prayse hath wonne,/In beingdiligent to conquer sinne”-(from theintroductory verses to Navigator’s Sup-

ply), Ridley advises his readers that“when [they] readest this booke, that[theyl should provide [themselves] ofsuch. . . Magnets as I have described

as also of needles, wiers andwaights of iron and steel. . . then[they] mayest reade and practice theoperations and demonstration in thisbooke.” Who won the argument? Ifone assigns significance to the eti-quette of introductions, a clue isfound in these lines from Ben Jon-son’s comedy The Magnetic Lady(1632), wherein the heroine-”LadyLodestone”-”Draws and draws untoyou guests of all sorts,/The courtiers,and the soldiers, and the scholars,/The travelers, physicians and di-vines,/As Doctor Ridley wrote, andDoctor Barlowe.”

Gilbert’s book was widely dissemi-nated (it reached Italy in only 2years), and with its publication a greatperiod of scientific research and in-quiry on the nature of electrostaticsand magnetism began-ominously.

Among De Magnete’s readers in Italywere Giordano Bruno (1548-1600),Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), andGilbert’s rival Giambattista DellaPorta (1535-1615) (Fig 8). The formertwo incorporated its contents intotheir arguments in support of the he-liocentric model of the solar systemthat had been proposed by NicolausCopernicus (1473-1543):Simplicio:Then you are one of those

people who adhere to themagnetic philosophy ofWilliam Gilbert?...

Salviati:I have the highest praise, ad-miration, and envy for theauthor, who framed such astupendous concept regardingan object which innumerablemen of splendid intellect hadhandled without paying anyattention to it.. . I might havewished for in Gilbert would bea little more of the mathemati-cian.. . I do not doubt that inthe course of time this newscience will be improved withstill further observations, and

even more by true and conclu-sive demonstrations. But thisneed not diminish the glory ofthe first observer...

(Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerningthe Two Chief World Systems-Ptolemaic& Copernican) (Florence, 1630). Portacalled Gilbert a “barbarous English-man.. . who took the whole seventhbook of my Magiae Naturalis Libri XX[Natural magick in 20 books] [Naples,1558] and split it into many books,making some changes; . . . the mate-rial which he adds on his own ac-count is false, perverse and melan-choly; and towards the end he arrivesat the mad idea that the earth is inmotion.” Bruno was burnt at the stakein Italy for promoting the Copernicansystem. Galileo was condemned bythe Inquisition for his belief in theheliocentric system and was underhouse arrest until his death. Porta wasexamined by the Inquisition, and in1592 all further publication of hisworks was prohibited. This ban wasnot lifted until 1598.

The treatment of Gilbert’s fellow

b.

Figure 8. (a) Giambattista Della Porta (bottom center)-autodidact, playwright, and writer of

books on philosophy, geometry, optics, military architecture, cryptography, mathematics, me-teorology, physiognomy, and chemistry. His book Magiae Naturalis Libri XX (Natural magick

in 20 books) (Naples, 1589), a mixture of useful recipes, half-truths, observations, and experi-ments, was a best-seller from its first appearance. It went through 12 editions in Latin, four inItalian, seven in French, two in German, two in English, and, possibly, one in Spanish and an-other in Arabic. The frontispiece (a) and title page (b)-engraved by Richard Gaywood (ca1650-1680)-of the English translation of the book, which was printed in London in 1658 (al-

most 100 years after the original publication date of the book!), give evidence to the complexnature of this man. They accommodate both the fantastic (alchemy) and the practical (Of Tem-pering Steel). The seventh chapter of Natural Magick deals with the “Load-stone.” Much in thatchapter is comparable to Gilbert’s statements in De Magnete, hence his hostility toward Gilbert.Porta was a curious, and contrary, man. He includes in this book chapters on perfumes and

cosmetics, and then goes on to describe how to turn women’s faces red, green, or pimply. His

dedication to experiment, and his contemplation of the natural world, freed him from manyfalse perceptions and brought him to the verge of greatness, but in the end he was over-

whelmed by the lure of the occult and the fabulous.

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}599

savants in France was no better thanthat in Italy. In 1634, the celebratedphilosopher and mathematician Ren#{233}Descartes (1596-1650, inventor of ana-lytic geometry) (Fig 9) was ready topublish his treatise Le Monde, ou Trait#{233}de la Lumi#{232}rewhen the news came tohim of Galileo’s persecution. He de-cided to suppress his quasi-atomistic(corpuscular) physical theories(amongst them the first mechanicaltheory of magnetism) until he hadsecured the patronage of CardinalRichelieu (1585-1642), chief ministerof King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643). Le Monde was not published inits entirety until after Descartes’death. In fact, in France, through thefirst half of the 17th century, it was acrime to publish any thesis that dis-agreed with the teachings of theCatholic Church (and Aristotle) with-out the consent of the theological fac-ulty of the University of Paris. The

punishment was death-a sentencemeted out to the Huguenot scholar,philosopher, mathematician, and ped-agogue Pierre de La Ram#{233}e(PeterRamus, 1515-1572). His attacks onAristotelian (non-atomistic) logic ledto his being shot, stabbed, thrownfrom a window, dragged by his heelsto the Seine, decapitated, and throwninto the river during the St Bartho-lomew’s Day Massacre (August 26,1572).

History shows that the CatholicChurch in the 17th century did notgive up its intellectual primacy with-out a fight. And yet, the main impetusfor objective scientific research wasprovided by the teachings of a Frenchpriest, Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655)(Fig 10), which rehabilitated theatomic doctrines of the ancientGreeks. How he contrived to get ec-clesiastical approval to publish De Vi-tae et Moribus Epicuri Libri Octo (Lyons,

1647)-a life of Epicurus-is a minormystery in the history of science. Epi-curus taught that in the beginningthere existed merely atoms and a void(vacuum) and that the universe (and,by inference, human beings) had orig-mated in the chance accretion of at-oms moving about in a random fash-ion. There is no room for God andCreation in such a theory. Neverthe-less, Gassendi managed it and thusmade heretical atomism fashionable.By teaching that “the human soul isimmaterial” and that “the Creator isthe first cause of things but, once themoment of Creation was over, He re-moved Himself from active control ofnatural phenomena,” he clothed at-omism in the vestments of religiousorthodoxy. Science’s claim for domin-ion over the world was advanced,and its champion in England was theone-time Paracelsian, and physician,Walter Charleton (1620-1707).

The extreme swings of fortune inWalter Charleton’s medical and scien-tific careers find echoes in the histori-cal events of the transitional periodinto which he was born. To under-stand the vast alterations that Charle-ton’s perception of science suffered,we must first consider another physi-cian and chemist of his time: the Bel-gian, Johannes Baptista Van Helmont(1579-1644). He was a Paracelcian anda brethren of the Ancient MysticalOrder of the Rosy Cross-a Rosicru-cian. This order was an offshoot ofParacelcian teachings and arose inGermany in the very early 17th cen-tury. Helmont was most interested inone aspect of Rosicrucian teachings:the “Unguentum Armarium,” orweapon salve. Some of the ingredi-ents of this salve were human blood,human fat, dried Egyptian mummy,armemac, oil of roses, and linseed oil.In short, it contained everything butlodestone! When a person waswounded by a weapon-for example,by an arrow-this salve was appliedto the weapon-in our example, theblood-covered arrowhead-and notto the wound. The wound itself wascleaned and dressed with clean lint.Then “the blood effused doth sendout subtle streams to its fount [thebody],” and with these streams, or“Magnetic Nuntii,” are carried “theBalsamick [healing] Emanations of theSympathetic Unguent or Powder.”Helmont’s troubles began when hepublished a treatise on the weaponsalve and the method for effectingsympathetic cures, De Magnetica Vul-nerum Naturali et Legitima CurationeContra (The magnetic cure of wounds)(Paris, 1621). The General Inquisition

b.

600 #{149}Radiology September 1991

Figure 9. (a) Ren#{233}Du Perron Descartes (or Renatus des Cartes). His goal in life was to present all the phenomena of nature (including man)

as the necessary consequences of a few first (mechanical) principles. Unfortunately for him, his excellent powers of observation and superior

experimental technique, provided him with endless examples of nature behaving in ways that belied his first principles. Nevertheless, Des-

cartes’ conceptions were to affect the course of science. In the field of medicine, his “beast-machine” provided the mechanical framework that

guided the development of physiology in the 17th century. Descartes’ theory of magnetism is ingenious. He could not bring himself to believein the atom and the vacuum, yet elements of the epicurean explanation of magnetism appealed to him. Hence, he postulated that all matter

contained microscopic pores, that these pores were all threaded with same sense, and that the degree to which an object can be magnetized

depends on the size and arrangement of its pores (b, from Principia Philosophiae [Principles of philosophy], Amsterdam, 1644). Why? Because all

space is permeated with screw-shaped particles (vortices). Thus, two objects attract each other strongly because these vortices can travel

through one object, emerge from it in a straight line, enter the other, and drive away the air between the two objects (in Archimedian screw

fashion). As there can be no void (vacuum), the objects move toward each other. Descartes’ theory of magnetism made a profound impression

on the illuminati and the literati of his time-to the extent that they appear in an unfinished poem of the great English poet Samuel Butler

(1612-1680), A Satire on the Royal Society: “Or what’s the strange magnetic cause/The steel or loadstone’s drawn or draws?/The star the needle,

which the stone/Has only been but touch’d upon?/Whether the North-star’s influence/With both does hold intelligence?/(For red-hot ir’n, held

tow’rds the pole,/Turns of itself to ‘t when ‘tis cool:)/Or whether male and female screws/In th’ iron and stone th’ effect produce?” The mannerof Descartes’ death is an anticlimax to his brilliant and restless life. In 1649 he accepted an offer to become tutor to Queen Christina of Sweden

(1626-1689). The queen, no mean scholar herself, chose the hour of 5 AM to receive her daily lesson from Descartes. On February 1, 1650, he

caught a chill while making his way to her palace to give the lesson. Ten days later he died of an inflammation of the lungs.

in Spain condemned the work in1625. A year later, it was impounded.In 1627 Helmont asserted his inno-cence and submission to the Church.He acknowledged his errors again in1630. Condemned in 1633-1634 foradhering to the “ monstrous super-stitions” of the school of Paracelsus,he was placed under house arrest un-til 1636. Church proceedings againsthim were not lifted until 1642, 2 years

before his death. In 1646 he receivedan official religious rehabilitation, andpermission was given for De Magnet-ica to be reprinted.

Helmont was not the charlatan thathis dabbling in alchemy would leadone to believe. Amongst his achieve-ments in medicine are the demonstra-tion that acid is the digestive agent inthe stomach, that the rhythmic move-ment of the pylorus exerts a directingaction on digestion, and (most impor-tant) that diseases have a discrete andunique nature. Amongst his achieve-ments in chemistry are improvedchemical medicines, the proof thatmetals reduced by acid are recover-able, and the discovery of “specificsmoke.” Helmont burned solids andfluids and applied chemical analysisto the smoke that resulted. He foundits nature to be different from air andwater vapor and to be specific to itssource material. This “specific smoke”

he gave the Greek name xaoc (chaos)or gas.

The complex mixture of advancedscience and medicine, cosmology, al-chemy, and metaphysics that is Hel-mont’s healing doctrine is couched inHermetic prose. Its translation fromLatin into English was accomplishedby Walter Charleton (Fig 11). Hishumble origins required him to entera profession-his choice was medi-cine. Charleton’s genius was quicklyrecognized, and, through the favor ofKing Charles II of England (1630-

1685), he was awarded the degree ofDoctor of Physick in 1643, at theyoung age of 23. Shortly afterward hewas made Physician-in-Ordinary tothe King. When Oliver Cromwell’s(1599-1658) Roundheads overthrewthe monarchy, Charleton moved toLondon. There, he was unable to ob-tain admission to the College of Phy-sicians until 1676 due, it is said, to theenvy and resentment that his precoc-ity generated-a more likely causewas his unrepentant royalism. Duringthe interregnum Charleton turned towriting. His first work was a transla-tion and expansion of Helmont’s oeu-vre (including De Magnetica), whichhe titled A Ternary of Paradoxes (Lon-don, 1650) (Fig 11). There, while con-sidering the healing powers of amber,he states that “the phansy of Amber

delights to allect [draw in] strawes,chaffe, and other festucous bodies, byan attraction, we confesse, obscureand weake enough, yet sufficientlymanifest and strong to attest an Elec-tricity, or attractive signature: for mar-ned to the mumie of our bodies, itappears superior to the humaneMagnet.” Charleton appears to be thecoiner of the word “electricity.” Notethat he uses it in the context of anelectrostatic charge causing two bod-ies to move together, instead of todenote a moving line of charge (a cur-rent).

A confirmed Helmontian, Charle-ton experimented with magneticcures. Their failure, and his growingawareness of the new atomic doc-trine, ensured that he would turnaway from Helmont and toward Gas-sendi. In 1654 his most importantwork on atomic natural philosophyappeared, Physiologia Epicuro-Gas-

sendo-Charlotiana (London, 1654) (Fig11). Through it, the mechanical phi-losophy of atomism was disseminatedin England, influencing the country’sleading scientists-among them IsaacNewton (1642-1727). Charleton en-joyed his greatest prosperity and in-fluence in the years following the res-toration of the monarchy in 1660. Hewas again appointed physician to theking, was made a member of the

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}601

Figure 10. Pierre Gassendi, defender of at-

omism. This is a reproduction of the en-

graved portrait executed by Jacques Lubin

(1637-1695?), which was published by

Charles Perrault (1628-1703, critic and author

of the Mother Goose fairy tales) in his book

Les Hommes Illustres qui ont Paru en France

Pendant ce Ci#{232}cle(Paris, 1696). Gassendi’s

writings touched all fields of knowledge:

metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, phys-

ics, and medicine. A chronic disease of the

chest undermined his health. A few days be-fore his death, he was bled nine times in a

single day in an effort to break his intermit-tent fever and to relieve the congestion in his

chest. Though weak and protesting that he

could not withstand another bleeding, he

submitted to the decision of the best physi-cians in Paris and allowed himself to be bled

four more times. He died on October 24,

1655.

Royal Society, and achieved fame as aprolific and brilliant author. However,by the 1690s the scientific beliefs andmethods that had preceded his Phys-iologia were obsolescent. His medicalpractice declined. Charleton spent thelast years of his life in poverty, un-done in part by the scientific ideasthat he had helped popularize.

The scholars of the 17th century-Bruno, Galileo, Della Porta, Voltaire,Gassendi, Charleton, Van Helmont,and many more-debated and wrotelengthy refutations of each other’swork and theories. They were prepar-ing the intellectual climate of Europefor the coming age of Enlightenmentthrough public, and vociferous, argu-ment. It was in a more gentle spiritthat the English physician ThomasBrowne (1605-1682) (Fig 12)-a shyand retiring man, always on thefringe of the scientific world, and aself-defined “enquirer after truth”-began the first systematic and deliber-ate onslaught on the magnetic salves,

medicines, and talismans that wereprevalent at that time. Browne wassingularly suited for that task. Whilehe was in his twenties, he traveledthroughout Italy, France, and Ger-many, studying many subjects, learn-ing several languages (Greek, Latin,French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, He-brew, Danish, and Portugese!), andreceiving his MD in Leiden in 1633.When he returned to England, hepracticed for 4 years with an estab-lished doctor in Oxford in order tosatisfy English regulations. He tookhis MD in Oxford in 1637. During thisperiod, and throughout his life, heread extensively on travel, philoso-phy, medicine, and science. He alsoconducted many experiments inphysics, electricity, biology, coagula-tion, and comparative anatomy. Allthat was remarkable that he learnedor read in any book, he set down innotebooks. These were to be his intel-lectual quarry until his death.

Browne’s fame results from threebooks that he wrote: Religio Medici (Aphysician’s religion) (London, 1643),Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Enquiries intovulgar and common errors) (London,1646), and Hidriotaphia, or, Urne-buriall(London, 1658). The first book is thestory of Browne’s resolution of “thedivided and distinguished worldsthat he inhabited.” In it, he deals witha doctor’s relation to his God and tothe secular world of his profession. Itwas read in England and, in transla-tion, everywhere in Europe. Fewbooks in any age have caused such acommotion. The last book is a consid-eration of the discovery of some sup-posed Roman (really Saxon) burialurns near Norwich, England. Portionsof this text are considered to be someof the greatest prose in the Englishlanguage. The second book is thelongest, most difficult to read, andmost important. It is a critique-a re-evaluation-of the popular ideas ofhis time. Browne did not mean forthis book to be the final arbiter onthese ideas, but rather, that it shouldclear the grounds for those who wereto follow him and who would “testthe things [ideas] themselves: opin-ions [on our conceptions] are free;and open it is for any to think or de-clare the contrary... [we] shall onlytake notice of such, whose experi-mental and judicious knowledge shallsolemnly look upon it.. . ready to beswallowed [by] any worthy enlarger.”Pseudodoxia comprises seven sections,or books. The first is devoted to thecauses of error, while the others en-compass topics as varied as “mineraland Vegetable bodies” and “things

questionable as they are described inPictures.” Over 200 separate topicsare treated in the 200 leaves of thebook. The amount of writing in it de-voted to any topic is related to theimportance that Browne assigned tothat topic. Thus, in mere paragraphshe deals with the devil’s cloven hoofand why dogs can search out a Jew inthe dark; consumes a page or so torefute the belief that a badger’s rightlegs are shortened so that he can runcomfortably along a hillside (whatwould happen if he ran across thesame ground in the opposite directionis not sufficient grounds to dismissthis “fact”); and consigns more than adozen pages to a consideration of acentral problem to the concept of mat-ter: magnetism.

Scrutiny of the lodestone occurs inthe second book of Pseudodoxia.Browne begins on a materialistic note:“And first we conceive the earth to bea Magneticall body . . . exciting andimpregnating magneticall bodyeswithin its surface or without it, andperforming in a secret and invisibleway what we evidently behold ef-fected by the Loadstone.” Then, hegoes on to describe the two contem-porary theories of the cause of mag-netism: the Epicurean (the stream ofatoms) and the Cartesian (the corpus-cular theory; see Fig 9). He doesn’tcommit himself to either theory, buthe attempts to test some of the better-known facts associated with magne-tism by observing the behavior of asimple magnetized needle compass (amagnetized needle piercing a corkthat is suspended in a bowl of water),magnetization of iron by heating, theattraction of unlike magnetic poles,and so on. He arrives at several falseconclusions-for example, “theNorthern pole of the Loadstone at-tracteth a greater weight then theSoutherne on this side of theEquator”-due in part to the primi-tive nature of the experiments he wasable to perform. However, he alsomakes some shrewd observations:“there may be some fraud in theweighing of precious commodities...by placing a powerful Loadstoneabove or below [the scale], accordingas we intend to depresse or elevateone extream” and “[the Loadstonejmay serve as a tryall of good Steel...taking up a greater masse of thatwhich is most pure.. . may also de-cide the conversion of wood into Iron,as is pretended. . . and the commoneconversion of Iron into Copper.”Browne then goes on to outline the“sundry. . . Naturall, Historicall, Med-icall [and], Magicall . . . common opin-

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602 #{149}Radiology September 1991

Figure 11. (a) This portrait of Walter

Charleton (frontispiece for Immortality of the

Human Soul [London, 1657]) at age 37 was

created 2 years before he published the first

English textbook on physiology, Natural His-tory ofNutrition, Life and Voluntary Motion

(London, 1659). By that age, he had already

translated the works of the Paracelcian Hel-mont into English (b) (note the alchemicalfrontispiece: The light of the sun [Lumen deLuminel ignites, through the agency of a

burning, or magnifying, glass, some materialfrom which ever-moving (In Termino Concur-susl “specific smoke” [Helmont’s x#{225}oc,orgas] arises), undergone a philosophical con-version to atomism (c), and suffered the in-trigues of his jealous fellow physicians. Corn-parison of Charleton’s 1657 portrait with his

engraved likeness at age 59 (d) (by David

Loggan [1635-1700?], frontispiece for Enqui-ries Into Human Nature in VI Anatomic Praelec-tions [London, 1680]), demonstrates thephysical toll that this uncompromising manpaid for his staunch Royalism-a toll that didnot extend to his personal conduct, as the

inscription below the engraving demon-strates: H#{225}p�h�ff�am�s K’avulroKpvroV (outspo-

ken and sincere). The proud author, whose

frontispiece for Immortality of the Human Soul

declared “In Effigiem & librum Dr. Charlton/

Imago puicra Est, picta sculptoris manu;/Atpulcriorem dat libris Autor suis,/Hic Corpus,Illis ipsa Mens depingitur/Imo Universi Mens& Ipsius simul/In effigy & in this book/There

is a beautiful image of Dr. Charleton, createdby a sculptor’s hand;/But the author rendersan even more beautiful picture in this book,/Here his body, and his very mind is painted/Nay, both his mind & that of the universe,”

saw out the end of his life as the impover-ished librarian of the Royal College of Physi-cians. His contemporary, Anthony a Wood,described him in his later years as “a learnedand an unhappy man, aged grave, yet toomuch given to romances [speculation].”

ions, and received . . . relations” onthe loadstone. He confirms, or dis-proves, by experiment those that hecan: Loadstone filings retain theirmagnetism, garlic does not destroy aloadstone; diamonds do not impedethe effect of loadstones, loadstones donot attract pure “glasse,” and so on.Those that are dubious and cannot beconfirmed by means of experiment hedoes not dispute but defers as to theirveracity to the testimony of menwhom he considers to be reliable wit-nesses. Among these are that theashes of vegetables that grow overiron mines contract a magnetic qual-ity, the Magnes Carneus-a loadstonethat has the capacity to attract flesh,the existence of magnetic islands inthe Indian Ocean, the levitated cultstatue of Arsinoe Philadelphos, andthe magnetically suspended Tomb ofMohammed. The absurd ones-that10 oz of loadstone to which 1 oz ofiron has been added still weighs 10oz, that there are loadstones that at-tract only at night, that if a loadstone

a. b.

PHYSIOLOGIAEpicuroGallendo-Charkoniana:

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is placed under the pillow of an un-faithful wife she will not be able toremain in bed with her husband, andso on-he guts with withering sallies.His response to the claim that “thebody of man is magneticall, and beingplaced in a boate, the vessell willnever rest until the head respecteththe North” is that “if this be true, thebodies of Christians doe lye unnatu-rally in their graves.. .“

r

I ernary ot araclOxesOF THE

e94agne#{252}c�Cure of Wounds.,7’.(�tivit.y of Tartar in IVine.Image of ifod in Man.

Although Browne cannot prove itabsolutely-and therefore he doesnot commit himself-he suggests thatthe mechanisms by which “effective”magnetic salves operate lie not in themagnetic properties of its contentsbut in the medicinal effects of themineral properties of those contents.The origin of such remedies as mag-netic amulets that “draw out” gout,headaches, and venereal diseases, he

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}603

Figure 12. Thomas Browne, whose answer

to the great error of his age-the obsequiousacceptance of traditional accounts of things

as they were-was to write the book Pseudo-doxia Epidemica. This is a detail from a con-

temporary painting done by an unknown

artist circa 1641-1650. The whole work shows

both Browne and his wife, Dorothy. ToBrowne, “the three determinators of truth

(are) authority, sense, and reason.” In theprefatory note of Pseudodoxia Epidemica he

says that existing errors in thinking must be

removed before men will be ready to receive

new knowledge. For that reason he had pre-

pared a “large and copious List” of com-

monly presumed truths. The task was very

difficult, as some of the subjects were ob-

scure; he had to work alone-cut off fromthe universities and from London-and he

could do it only in snatches of time, “as med-

ical vacations, and the fruitless importunity

of Uroscopy would permit” him.

consigns to man’s instinct for “thehopeful enlargements of its [the load-stone’s] allowed attraction.” Brownedismisses as nonsense a report of ayoung man who had swallowed aknife and who was cured when theknife was attracted to a convenientlocation by applying “a plaister madeup with the powder of Loadstone”and then cut from his stomach.

All that Browne attests to in Pseudo-doxia is not correct. Much of what hesets down in it is not original-heborrows extensively from Gilbert,Gassendi, Descartes, and others. Thegreat merit in this work lies not in itsoriginality of thought but in its dem-onstration that dogmatic assertionsabout phenomena will break down inthe face of experience. And so, at theend of the 17th century, what littlewas known and could be quantifiedabout magnets and magnetic phe-

Figure 13. Allegorical frontispiece of the

Traitt#{233}de l’Aiman byjoachim Dalenc#{233}.Itshows a mariner holding a rudder in one

hand and a compass in the other, about to

board his ship. A goddess points with her left

hand to a compass and with her right handto the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little

Bear), the brightest star of which is Polaris(the Pole, or North, Star). She holds in herleft hand a sounding (depth) line. In front ofthe mariner’s ship floats a boat-shaped vessel

containing a lodestone. On the left, a sus-

pended lodestone supports a series of keys

and weights, possibly a display of a lode-

stone’s strength. On the ground, next to the

plinth, lies a series of mining tools (picks,shovels, etc), indicating the source of lode-

stones.

nomena could be summarized in the33 overwrought plates that form thecurious work Traitt#{233}de l’Aiman (Am-sterdam, 1687) (Fig 13) by JoachimDalenc#{233}(ca 1640-1707). It is proof thatin the nearly 100 years after the publi-cation of Gilbert’s great book no ad-vancement had been made in thestudy of magnetism. All that is knownof Dalenc#{233}comes from archival mate-rial and correspondence. Besides thetreatise on the magnet, he wrote twoother important works: La Reconais-sance des Temps, ou Calendrier et Ephe-merides du Lever et de Coucher de la Luneet des Autres Plan#{232}tes,avec les Eclipsespour l’Ann#{233}e(Paris, 1679-1684) (a set ofastronomical tables on the daily risingand setting times of the moon andplanets [ephemeris tables]) and Trait-tez des Barometres, Thermometres et No-tiometres ou Hygrometres (Amsterdam,1688) (a book on meteorologic instru-ments). In the latter work, he was thefirst to suggest the calibration of ther-

mometers on the basis of two pointsof change: one, the freezing point ofwater, and the other, unfortunately,the melting point of butter (he wasprobably from Normandy). The publi-cation of Traitt#{233}de l’Aiman was onemore step in the transition of man’sperception of the world as a placecontrolled by philosophical principlesto one governed by measurable, in-tangible, forces. The tangled skein ofmagnetism, electrostatics, medicine,chemistry, and the then infant scienceof physics was beginning to be unrav-elled into separate strands.

In the 18th century, a passionateinterest in electricity and magnetismenveloped all of Europe’s peoples,especially the French and the Ger-mans-fire in the form of sparkscould be forced out of the humanbody. Man was surrounded by aston-ishing, invisible forces. Rubbed glassmachines, which could produce aconstant source of electrical charge,were invented (Fig 14). Contempo-rary demonstrations of the electricaVmagnetic fluids in the body pro-ceeded in this manner: An urchin wascaught, suspended in mid-air by insu-lating cords, and then electrified bycontact with a rubbed glass machine.Sparks would then be drawn from hisnose and he would be made to attractsmall bits of paper and metal leaf (Fig15). The first man to perform the elec-trifled boy experiment was also thefirst to demonstrate the transmissionof charge-the English electricianStephen Gray (1666-1736). Born to afamily of artisans, Gray, a shy andself-effacing man, followed in his fa-ther’s footsteps and became a dyer.His omnivorous interest in the sci-ences was fed by self-education. In-deed, he was not to devote himselfcompletely to science until a bad backmade him unable to practice his trade.Then, in 1711, he asked to be admit-ted as a “poor brethren” (pensioner)to Sutton’s Hospital (the LondonCharterhouse-an extant institutionthat provides schooling for boys whoare “gentlemen by descent and inpoverty” and a living for poor breth-ren who were preferably “soldiersthat had borne arms by sea or land,merchants decayed by piracy or ship-wreck, or servants in household tothe King or Queen’s Majesty”). Hewas admitted in June 1719. There, hefound a more than adequate numberof urchins on which to experiment.He first tried the electrified boy exper-iment in his chamber on April 8, 1730,although he did not describe it in thePhilosophical Transactions of the RoyalSociety until 1731. In Gray’s own

604 #{149}Radiology September 1991

words, “a Boy between eight and

nine Years of Age. His weight, withhis Cloaths on, was forty-seven

Pounds ten Ounces. I suspended him

in a horizontal Position . . . Upon the

[glass] Tube’s being rubbed, and heldnear his Feet . . . the Leaf-Brass was

attracted to the Boy’s face with muchVigour . . .“ On Gray’s death, thewriter and critic Samuel Johnson(1709-1784) co-wrote “Now, hoarySage, pursue thy happy flight,/With

swifter motion haste to purer light,!Where Bacon waits with Newton andwith Boyle!To hail thy genius, andapplaud thy toil;”

By 1743 showmen were traveling

with their electrical machines to theEnglish New World Colonies, giving

people shocks for a small fee. In thatyear, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

(Fig 16) observed in Boston an electri-fled boy exhibition by the itinerantelectrician (and practicing male mid-

wife) Archibald Spencer (MD, ?-1760)of Edinburgh, Scotland, lecturer on

natural philosophy. The man was apopular lecturer, who, Franklin wrote“was lately arrived from Scotland,

and showed me some electrical exper-iments. These were imperfectly

perform’d, as he was not very expert;but being on a subject quite new tome, they equally surpris’d andpleased me.” Franklin was in the pro-cess of retiring from the printing

trade. His business interests wereyielding him an income of #{163}1,000ayear-equal to the salary of the royalgovernor of the province of Pennsyl-vania. It is to be expected that thisrestless man would seek an outlet for

his intellectual energies. Spencer’s

lecture, although flawed by Boston’shumidity, roused Franklin’s interestin electrical and magnetic phenom-ena. He acquired some simple equip-ment from Europe and began theirstudy. In 1744, Spencer performed hislecture-demonstration in Philadel-phia. At some time after that, Franklinbought Spencer’s equipment, and hisresearch began in earnest (Spencertook holy orders and spent the rest ofhis life as minister to All Hallows Par-ish, Anne Arundel County, Mary-land). Within a few years he hadteased out the basic principles of elec-trostatics (Fig 17). Much of presentelectrical terminology originates withFranklin: charge, discharge, con-denser, electrical shock, electrician,positive, negative, plus, and minus.As a graphic expression to describethe shock produced by combining anumber of Leyden jars (condensers orcapacitors), he took over the militaryterm “battery.”

Figure 14. The electrostatic engine was in-

vented in 1705 by Francis Hauksbee (1666-

1713), demonstrator and curator of experi-

ments for the Royal Society of London. Hewas investigating the blue glow given off by

rubbed evacuated glass tubes. In reality, the

tubes were only partially evacuated, and the

phenomenon he was observing we now callionization. To produce the glow, he mounted

an evacuated glass globe on a spindle androtated it with great speed while a woolen

cloth was pressed against it by a strong brass

spring. He discovered that this apparatus

could produce a strong electric charge that

could be transferred to other objects bymeans of a metal chain (wire) connected to

fine metal points suspended just above theglass globe’s surface. Such an instrument was

used by Benjamin Franklin for his own scien-tific investigations. Hauksbee was an experi-

mental genius but a scientific autodidact. Hederived his theoretical principles from thepresident of the Royal Society, Isaac Newton.In turn, Newton relied on Hauksbee to testhis conjectures. At his request, Hauksbee

tried without much success to discover the

law of magnetic attraction. Their collabora-tion, which continued until Hauksbee’s

death, enabled Newton to make extensions

and revisions to his theories: “The power ofgravity is of a different nature from the

power of magnetism . . . The power of mag-netism in one and the same body may be in-

creased and diminished; and is sometimesfar stronger, for the quantity of matter, than

the power of gravity; and in receding from

the magnet decreases not as the square butalmost as the cube of the distance, as nearly

as I could judge from some rude observa-

tons” (Principia III, 6-he almost got it right).

It is to Franklin that we owe one ofthe most (to this author) annoyingconcepts in physics. The kind ofcharge that accumulates on a glassrod that has been rubbed with silk henamed “positive.” That which accu-mulates on amber that has beenrubbed with fur he named “nega-tive.” He defined the sense of currentas positive charge moving from a pos-

itively charged battery electrode to anegatively charged electrode. Wenow know that when a glass rod isrubbed with silk some of the rod’s

mobile electrons (negative charge) aretaken up by the silk, “charging” itpositively, and that an amber rodrubbed with fur has some of the fur’smobile electrons transferred to it,“charging” it negatively. But the truenature of current is electron flow. Be-cause of Franklin, current flows in theopposite sense to that of the particlesthat carry it.

Magnetism is not a research area inwhich Franklin distinguished himself.He tried to describe magnetism interms of a magnetic fluid the proper-ties of which were analogous to thoseof his electrical fluid (charge). Thus,according to him, all matter contains a

magnetic fluid that is uniformly dis-

tributed throughout it. When an ob-

ject is magnetized the fluid condenses

in one of its extremities. That extrem-ity becomes positively magnetized

while the donor region of the objectbecomes negatively magnetized. Thedegree to which an object can bemagnetized depends on the forcenecessary to start the fluid moving

within it. Whether it remains so is in-dicative of how easy it is for the mag-netic fluid to flow on its own back tothe negative magnetic pole. An elec-trical shock (current) passing throughan object renders it a magnet becauseit puts the object’s magnetic fluid in

motion. At the same moment thatsolid connections were being estab-

lished between electricity and magne-

tism-”[a tradesman in Wakefield]

having put up a great number ofknives and forks in a large box . . . in alarge room. . . a sudden storm ofthunder, lightening.. . the Box split

many knives and forks melted...emptying the box upon a Counterwhere some Nails lay. .. the knives,that lay upon the Nails.. . took upthe Nails” (Philosophical Transactions ofthe Royal Society for 1 735)-Franklin

turns around and says “As to themagnetism, which seems produced byelectricity, my real opinion is, thatthese two powers of nature have no

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}605

affinity with each other, and that the

apparent production of magnetism is

purely accidental.”The variety of medical matters that

Franklin took an interest in makesone gasp. Possibly inspired by reportsof new therapies based on placing theill in a tub of water containing anelectric eel, he experimented with

electric shocks as a cure for paralysis:

“I sent the united shock . . . throughthe affected limb or limbs . . . the nextmorning the patients usually related. . . a prickling sensation . . . The limbs. . . seemed to receive strength . . . I donot remember that I ever saw any

amendment after the fifth day... [the

patients] became discouraged, went

home, and in a short time relapsed.”

He appears to be the first man to out-

line (at least in writing) the concept of

a craft-related disease: lead poisoning.

When his sister contracted breast can-

cer, Franklin compiled a list of the

then-known therapies for it. He made

the observation that colds could be

spread by contagion but not throughcold itself. Considering the breadth ofhis endeavors, is it any wonder thathe had to invent bifocals so that hecould work with greater efficiency?

In one area of medicine Franklintruly erred, and this had tragic conse-quences for him. Cotton Mather(1663-1728)-author, Bostonian Con-gregational minister, and AmericanPuritan-was to most of his contem-poraries the embodiment of outdatedideology. To Franklin, he was an in-

b.Figure 15. The electrified boy was a dra-

matic, and popular, demonstration of electri-

cal fluids. In a, we see the electrician Abb#{233}

Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-1770) performing

it for the ladies of the French court in the

mid-1740s. He holds a rubbed glass tube over

the boy’s head, which induces in the boy a

distribution of charge. A woman raises her

finger to the boy’s nose and draws a sparkfrom it. The boy’s hands attract bits of paper

from the small table in front of him. Nollet

made his living from the construction andsale of scientific apparatus, and his “cour de

physique” was a set of carefully orchestrated

science demonstrations performed forwealthy and enthusiastic auditors. His mostillustrious audience was the king of France,

Louis XV (1710-1774), and the dauphin and

dauphine of France, the future Louis XVI andMarie Antoinette. It is said that to demon-

strate to them the transmission of static

charge (he was the dauphin’s preceptor), he

made a line of several hundred Cartusian

monks hold hands. Then, the last monk in

the line was handed a metal pole driven intothe ground, while the first touched a charged

electrostatic machine. All of the monksleaped simultaneously into the air. The king

was most amused. Nollet disagreed strongly

with Franklin’s theories on the nature of elec-

tricity. Although wrong in his challenge,

through the prodding of his objections elec-trostatic theory was refined. This illustration

comes from Nollet’s treatise on his electrical

experiments, Essai sur l’#{233}lectricit#{233}des corps(Paris, 1746). (b) An illustration from the book

of the German astronomer and mathemati-

cian Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750),

Neu-entdeckte Phaenomena (Neuremberg,

1744), which shows his version of the electri-

fled boy demonstration. This book was in-

strumental in creating the popular interest inelectrical phenomena that spread throughout

Germany in the mid-1740s. The son of a mer-

chant who made a hobby of physics, Doppel-

mayr devoted his life to lecturing (he was a

professor of mathematics), writing, astronom-

ical and meteorological observation, and

physical experimentation. He died of a severe

electrical shock that he received while experi-

menting with the just-invented condenser

(capacitor).

fluential figure, as Mather, the firstman from the New World Colonies tobe elected a member of the Royal So-ciety of London (1713), was one of thebest-informed men in the colonies.Franklin attributed his own penchantfor practical schemes to notions de-rived from Mather’s essays. Whateverenergies Mather could spare fromproducing those writings-over 450

separate works of scriptural explana-tion, scientific education (he onceconsidered a career in medicine), andpolitical morality-he used to lead acampaign that he began in 1721 forinoculation against smallpox. Popularsentiment was so high against thisprocedure that on one occasion a(dud) grenade was thrown intoMather’s house (the note attachedread “Cotton Mather, you Dog; Damyou; I’l enoculate you with this, witha pox on you”). Franklin joined thepopular attack on Mather, lampoon-ing him in his brother’s paper TheNew England Courant. Mather’s father,

Increase Mather, expressed his fami-ly’s opinion of Franklin’s writing: “I

cannot but pity poor Franklin, who,tho’ but a young Man it may bespeedily he must appear before theJudgement Seat of God, and whatanswer will he give for printingthings so vile and abominable?” In1736, one of Franklin’s sons-his be-

loved Francis- died of smallpox atthe age of 4 because he had not beeninoculated. Franklin would later sor-rowfully acknowledge his youthfulfolly: “I long regretted bitterly, andstill regret that I had not given it tohim by inoculation. This I mention forthe sake of parents who omit that op-eration, on the supposition that theyshould never forgive themselves if a

child died under it; my exampleshowing that the regret may be thesame either way, and that, therefore,the safer should be chosen.”

His medical interests gave Franklinan entr#{233}eto some of his most devotedpaladins: the learned physicians of hisday. They were to serve Franklin well

during his life. One notorious mci-dent comes to mind. The standarddefense in his time against lightningwas the ringing of bells. Now, the in-cineration of bellringers by lightningwas a much-noted phenomenon.

Franklin advocated replacing bell-ringers by spiked, or pointed, light-

ning rods (an invention of his) placedon building towers. English savantsfavored knobbed, or blunt, ones. Atthe time of this disagreement the dis-obedient New World Colonies, whichFranklin represented, were in full rev-olution, and the shape of lightningrods became a matter of politics. In1778, King George III of England(1738-1820) instructed the president

of the Royal Society, the eminent mili-tary doctor John Pringle (1707-1782)-coiner of the words “septic”and “antiseptic”-that henceforthlightning rods would end in knobs.

Pringle, a good friend of Franklin,replied that “the prerogatives of the

a. b.

Figure 16. Benjamin Franklin, the intellectual “beau ideal” of his time, achieved world re-

nown at age 45 with his experiments on electrical phenomena. A brilliant scientist and experi-

mentalist, Franklin was thought by his contemporaries to be the “Father of Electricity” (many

people now do also). (a) This portrait of Franklin at age 40 by Roger Feke (1724-1769) explains

his fame as a courtier and lady’s man. At age 26, however, he created one of the great comic

literary creations-Richard Saunders, a bumbling old savant, poor, saddled with a shrewish

wife, given to making pious observations and to ogling pretty girls-and gave him a home in

Poor Richard’s Almanac (Philadelphia, 1732). Succeeding generations have confused Franklin

with his creation. (b) Popular images of Franklin, such as this mezzotint by Edward Fisher

(1730-1785) after an oil painting executed by Mason Chamberlin (?-1787) in 1762, do not help

prevent this. The pair of bells on Franklin’s right were installed in his study. One was

grounded and the other connected to a form of lightning rod, and they would ring during a

lightning discharge.

606 #{149}Radiology September 1991

President of the Royal Society do notextend to altering the laws of nature,”and forthwith resigned (or so goes thetale, which may have been concoctedby the French).

Franklin’s involvement in medicalresearch and his investigations ofmagnetism can be portrayed as pay-ing the way for one of the greatbloodbaths of history-the FrenchRevolution. Franz Anton Mesmer (Fig18) was born in 1734 in Germany. Inhis early life he was an uninspired,but diligent, student. He studied med-icine in Vienna and received his doc-torate of medicine from the Univer-sity of Vienna in 1766. His thesis, DePlanetarium Influx, extends to paracel-sian medicine the gravitational theoryof Isaac Newton! For the next 8 years,Mesmer practiced medicine in Vi-enna, spending his spare time experi-menting in physics and practicing on

the glass harmonica (a musical instru-ment perfected by Franklin). He wasknown for his modesty, lack of ambi-tion, and kindness. A recipient of thatbeneficence was the young WolfgangAmadeus Mozart (1756-1791). At theage of 12, Mozart was commissionedby Emperor Joseph II of Austria(1741-1790) to write an opera. Thecourt intrigues of the time sabotagedthis commission. To make amends,Mesmer ordered from Mozart an op-era for himself. This work, Bastien et

Bastienne-Mozart’s first opera-madeits debut in September of 1768 in Mes-mer’s private theater. Mozart laterrepaid Mesmer’s generosity by mock-ing him in the opera CosIfan Tutte.

In 1774, Mesmer made the acquain-tance of Father Maximilian H#{246}ll(1720-1792), Jesuit priest, professorof astronomy at the University ofVienna, and court astrologer to themother of both Joseph II and QueenMarie Antoinette of France, the Em-press Maria Theresa of Austria (1717-1780). Father H#{246}llwas affecting medi-cal cures with artificial lodestones-pieces of iron that had been stronglymagnetized through a process devel-oped during the period 1743-1751(Fig 19). Mesmer obtained a supply ofthese magnets from Father H#{246}llandbegan to apply them to his patients(many of whom had numerous symp-toms that today would be recognizedas having hysterical or psychosomatic

origins) to assist the flow of the uni-versal “fluidum” from the atmo-sphere to their bodies. Mesmer knewfrom Paracelsian teachings that thisfluidum (a form of magnetic flux fromthe stars) had curative powers. Thecures he achieved were astounding.However, since the true agency for

these cures was the power of sugges-tion, Mesmer soon found that hecould obtain cures with such non-magnetic stuffs as paper, wool, silk,stone, and even animals and humanbeings. He therefore reasoned that hewas not dealing with ordinary“mineral” magnetism, but with a spe-cial kind that he named “animal”magnetism. Disease resulted from an“obstacle” to the natural flow in thebody of the fluidum channeled fromthe stars to the body by the body’sown “animal” magnetism. Ill peoplecould overcome this “obstacle” by“mesmerizing” their body’s magneticpoles to induce a “crisis” (often in theform of convulsions) and so restoretheir health or “harmony.” In a singleshort year, mesmerism and mesmericcures became the rage of Vienna.Needless to say, the medical faculty ofthe University of Vienna was skepti-cal of Mesmer’s theory. They werealso alarmed by his increasing fameand the royal favor he was beginningto achieve. This was to be his undo-ing.

In January 1777, Mesmer undertookthe cure of Maria Theresia vonParadies (1759-1824)-a child pianovirtuoso and prot#{233}g#{233}eof Empress

Maria Theresa. Maria had been blindsince the age of 3. It is certain fromthe records of the time that her blind-ness was due entirely to hysteria.Mesmer’s treatments restored Maria’ssight but induced another hystericalsymptom: She lost her equilibrium.Mesmerizing therapy for this condi-tion replaced it with depression. Thetreatments and counter-treatmentswent on and on, and what was worse,Maria began to lose her musical tal-ents. Maria’s parents, envisioning afuture devoid of the income providedto them by the empress and fearful ofher displeasure when she learned oftheir child’s newfound unremarkablenormalcy, demanded at a melodra-matic meeting that Mesmer stop tam-pering with their daughter’s health.The girl’s reaction to this meeting wasspectacular. She fell to the floor writh-ing in convulsions and promptly be-came totally blind (again). As a result,an official committee of investigationwas set up to evaluate the efficacy ofMesmer’s magnetic cures. On May 2,1777, Mesmer was ordered to “makean end of this fraudulent practice,”was expelled from the fraternity ofmedicine of the city of Vienna, andwas ordered to leave the city.

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}607

b.

Figure 17. (a) Franklin’s book Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphiain America (London, 1751) is one of the most widely read and discussed books ever written ona scientific subject. The influence of his writings on the affairs of the world extended beyondsuch mundane matters as government, medicine, and science-to the ratified regions of cou-ture. (b) His invention of the lightning rod engendered the most daring fashion ever: light-ning rod hats. Ladies were able to promenade about Paris safe in the knowledge that the longconducting wires that trailed behind them to the ground would keep their heads free of ex-cess electrical “fluidum.”

Figure 18. Franz Anton Mesmer (1734-

1815). The public’s opinion of the man took

two extreme forms: “Mille jaloux espnts en

vain l’ont voulu nuire,/Mesmer, par tes soins

genereux,fNos maux ont disparus,l’humanit#{233} respire./A thousand jealous spir-

its have vainly tried to harm you,/Mesmer;

by your generous care,/Our ills have disap-

peared, humanity breathes” and “Vieilles,

jeunes, laides, belles,/Toutes aiment le doc-teur,/Et toutes lui sont fldeles./Young or old,plain or bold,/All women love the doctor,/And they onto him, all cling and hold.”

The Paris that Mesmer entered in1781 was fertile ground for his theo-ries. Sir Isaac Newton’s (1642-1727)gravity, Voltaire’s (1694-1778) dis-courses on Newton’s theories, Fran-kiln’s electricity, the De Montgoffierebrothers’ (Etienne Jacques [1745-1799]and Michel Joseph [1740-18101) mys-tenous gas and the “experienceaerostatique” that it produced (thefirst hot-air balloon ifight occurred onJune 15, 1783)-these, not revolution,were to be the topics of discussion inthe salons of Paris for the next fewyears. Indeed, Maximilien Robespi-erre’s (1758-1794) first public state-ments were in defense of lightningrods (pointed ones). The popular en-thusiasm for science was so strongthat the wall between science andpseudoscience began to crumble intothe chasm of occultism, where mes-merism would dwell.

Mesmer set up a medical practice inParis. His rise to fame and notorietyand the backlash of his success retracethe paths they followed in Vienna.Mesmer left Paris late in 1781 to “re-cuperate from the wounds that hadbeen inflicted on him by officialdom”while his followers remained behindto organize a popular front. A lawyer,Nicolas Bergasse (1750-1832), oversawthe establishment of “magnetic clubs”throughout all of France-allegedly,for the purpose of disseminating Mes-

mer’s teachings. The Paris branch, theSociety of Harmony, was the mostprestigious and exclusive. The Mar-quis de La Fayette (1757-1834) signedhis membership contract to it on April5, 1784 (initiation fee, 100 louis d’or-about 50,000 U. S. 1991 dollars!).Shortly afterward, he traveled to theNew World Colonies to visit GeorgeWashington (1732-1799). He carried aletter from Mesmer to Washington;thus began a correspondence be-tween these two men. Washington’sperceptions on mesmerism combineenthusiasm with a healthy skepticism.To Mesmer he wrote that “the discov-ery of [magnetismi . . . if it shouldprove as extensively beneficial as it issaid, must be fortunate indeed formankind, and rebound very highly tothe genius to whom it owes its birth.”

As time went on, the distinctionbetween a follower of mesmerism andan opponent of the status quo (by

definition, then, a political revolution-ary) became blurred. Under Ber-gasse’s direction, mesmerism becamea camouflaged political theory, andthe “magnetic clubs,” revolutionarycells. That this was his intention allalong can be surmised from this state-ment that he made at one of the Soci-ety of Harmony’s, by then, closedmeetings: “The time has now come,for the revolution that France needs.But to attempt to produce one openly

is to doom it to failure. To succeed it isnecessary to wrap oneself in mystery.It is necessary to unite men under thepretext of experiment in physics, but,in reality, for the overthrow ofdespotism.”

By the time Mesmer had reestab-lished himself in Paris in 1785 (partlyat Marie Antoinette’s request), he hadlost all control over his theories. Hismedical practice degenerated into theextravagant, ludicrous, cultic displaysand rituals that we now associatewith him. Dozens of mesmeristsclaimed that they alone held the “truesecrets” of mesmerism. A royal com-mission to investigate mesmerism wascreated by King Louis XVI of France(1754-1793) on March 12, 1784. It wascomposed of nine members: Fourcame from the medical faculty of theUniversity of Paris (including DoctorGuillotin [1738-1814], inventor of a“humane” method for execution-theguillotine), and five came froml’Acad#{233}mie des Sciences (includingAntoine Lavoisier [1743-1794] and theambassador from the newly foundedUnited States of America, BenjaminFranklin). The commission met atFranklin’s house in Passy, on the out-skirts of Paris. On August 11, 1784, itswork was completed, and a reportwas drawn up by Franklin. It was sent

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a.

608 #{149}Radiology September 1991

to the king in the form of the Rapportdes Commissaires Charges par le Roi del’Examen du Magn#{233}tisme Animal (Fig20). Mesmer’s theories were declaredfraudulent.

The French Revolution came in1789. Robespierre’s retaliation for therejection of his application to mem-bership to l’Acad#{233}mie des Sciences(for lack of scientific credentials-hewas, after all, a mesmerist) was to in-troduce as many of its members as hecould to “Madame la Guillotine” (es-pecially those, among them Lavoisier,who had been on his credentials corn-mittee). Mesmer left France in 1789,wandered throughout Europe, livedout the final years of his life a fewmiles from his birthplace, and died in1815. The last years of Father HOll,Mesmer’s first instructor on the prop-erties of magnets, were also troubled.The Jesuit order was abolished (again)in 1773, signaling a campaign of pub-lic defamation of the Jesuits. Doubtsabout HOll’s astronomical observa-tions and scientific credibility wereraised. These accusations pursuedand hurt him through the last 20years of his life. His scientific reputa-tion was not rehabilitated until almosta century after his death. In this, he ismore fortunate than Mesmer.

The credit for discovering the true

nature of electromagnetism goes toHans Christian Oersted (1777-1851), aprofessor of physics at the Universityof Copenhagen. The (possibly apocry-phal) moment occurred there in thewinter of 1820 during a lecture dem-onstration, when he noticed that acompass needle was deflected when acurrent flowed through a nearbywire. He carried out some experi-ments and found to his astonishmentthat not only did a current-carryingwire exert a force on a magnet, but amagnet also exerted a force on a coilof wire carrying an electric current.The coil acted like a magnet, behavingas if it possessed magnetic north andsouth poles. Magnetism and electric-ity were somehow connected. Oer-sted published his results on July 21,1820, in a four-page article written inLatin. Such was Oersted’s fame afterthis article appeared that to avoidconfusion (?) the illustrious Danishstoryteller Hans Christian Andersen(1805-1875) began to refer to Oerstedas the “Great Hans Christian” and tohimself as the “Little Hans Christian.”

The pace of scientific research onmagnetism skyrocketed. Within a fewyears the properties of electromagne-tism were worked out by Andr#{233}MarieAmpere (1775-1836), Jean-BaptisteBiot (1774-1862), and Felix Savart

Figure 19. It is not clear who was the first to

produce a strong artificial magnet. Three En-

glishmen can stake a claim to this achieve-

ment: the physician Gowin Knight (1713-

1772), the schoolmaster and amateurphysicistJohn Canton (1718-1772), and the

astronomerJohn Michell (1724-1793). Dr

Knight’s claim is based on precedence. Ac-counts of his bar magnets made of laminated

steel and their superiority over the then

available natural and artificial magnets firstappear in the Philosophical Transactions of theRoyal Society in 1744. Unfortunately, Dr

Knight never revealed his magnet-making

process. His rival was Canton, a good friend

of Franklin. Canton’s fields of research were

magnets and meteorology. He hoped to

profit from the manufacture and sale of artifi-cial magnets. Accounts of his magnets begin

to appear in 1747, but he delayed publishinghis technique in the Philosophical Transactionsofthe Royal Society until 1751. Canton was to

rue his reticence, for the first published de-scnption of the manufacture of artificial mag-nets is a book written by Michell in 1750: ATreatise ofArtificial Magnets (Cambridge, 1750)

(a). The similarity between Michell’s tech-nique and Canton’s led the latter to cry foul,

but his accusations came to naught. One

achievement is Michell’s alone: He intro-duced the term “Horse Shoe” magnet (b,magnet labeled Fig 4). Patients undergoing

mesmeric treatments would have such mag-

nets placed about their neck or they would

be given bar magnets to hold (b, magnet la-

beled Fig 2). Perhaps we should let the last

word on the topic of magnet design be Frank-un’s: “Dr. Knight, inventor of steel magnets,

has wrote largely on that subject; but I have

not yet had leisure to pursue his writings

with the attention necessary to become mas-

ter of his doctrine.”

(1791-1841). The classical edifice ofelectromagnetism was capped in 1865by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)with the publication of his electro-magnetic wave theory of light.

The first “magnetic image” was cre-ated in 1838 by Dr John Elliotson(1791-1868) (Fig 21), professor of thetheory and practice of medicine atLondon University, president of theRoyal Medical and Chirurgical Soci-

ety, founding member of the Univer-sity Hospital, and disciple of Mesmer.Elliotson was one of the first doctors

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of making them,

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to use a stethoscope and to practicepercussion and auscultation. His bookHuman Physiology was for many yearsthe standard university text. Elliotsonbecame interested in magnetismsometime in 1829. By 1837 he was per-forming at the University CollegeHospital “painless” surgery on pa-tients anesthetized (hypnotized) with“magnetic sleep.” His most famousmedical case occurred in 1838 andinvolved two hysterics, the sistersElizabeth and Jane Okey. Not onlydid magnetic treatments cure them,but they also gave them “clear [clair]sight [voyant]” or clairvoyance-theability to visualize their internal or-gans and those of others. Elliotsonhad the sisters accompany him on hismedical rounds. Through magnets, hewould place them in a trancelikestate. They then evaluated the state ofthe organs of his patients, and hewould prescribe appropriate treat-ments for their ailments. This earlyimaging technique and the idiosyn-cratic behavior of Elizabeth Okeybrought him into conflict with his col-leagues. Elizabeth had a habit of ap-proaching certain patients, giving aconvulsive shudder, and screaming,“Great Jacky [the angel of death] issitting on the bedclothes!” It was be-lieved that the precipitous end ofsome dying patients was provoked byher oracular zeal. The University Hos-

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}609

a.

pital passed the following resolutionin 1838: “That the Hospital Commit-tee be instructed to take such steps asthey shall deem most advisable toprevent the practice of mesmerismwithin the hospital.” Elliotson aban-doned his medical practice and de-voted his life to the publication of TheZoist, A Journal of Cerebral Physiology[phrenology] and Mesmerism and theirApplications to Human Welfare (1843-

1856). His use of magnetism as a diag-nostic tool was not to be vindicatedfor 150 years.

At the birth of the 20th centurycame both Wilhelm Konrad R#{246}ntgen’s(1845-1923) discovery of x rays (1895)

and the quantum theory. That mag-netic fields affected atomic phenom-ena was immediately observed by theDutch physicist Pieter Zeeman (1865-1943). He demonstrated that the opti-cal spectrum of the sodium atomcould be affected by placing the atomin a strong magnetic field (1) (the Zee-man effect). To the scientists of thattime, this implied that atoms pos-sessed a magnetic field. It became es-sential that the quantum theory beable to describe the behavior of anatomic nucleus immersed in a strongmagnetic field. Once the theory wasformulated it was necessary to con-firm it through experiment. The exist-ence of the intrinsic magnetic mo-ment (field) of the atom was demon-strated (2) by Otto Stern (1888-1969)and Walter Gerlach (1889-1979?) in1924. Subsequent research (3-5) byIsidor Rabi (1898-1988) and his col-leagues led to the first direct measure-

b.Figure 20. (a) The report to King Louis XVI

of France from the commission he estab-lished to examine mesmerism caused quite a

sensation. It provided much material for thepublic imagination and for doggerels.

(b) This print from that time, entitled Le Mag-n#{233}tismeD#{233}voil#{233}(Magnetism Unveiled), shows

Franklin leading the commission members in

an attack on mesmerists. He holds aloft the

commission’s report. The mesmerists flee (lit-

erally, fly) from its glow of truth. They leave

behind their gullible patients and a smashed

mesmeric tub, emptied of its magnetic fluid.The following is the punchline of one of the

most widely reproduced epigrams of thetime: “Si quelqu’n espnt original/Persiste

encore dans son d#{233}lire,/Il sera permis de lui

dire:/Crois au magn#{233}tisme . . . animalYOf anymind so fanatical/That it persists in this delu-

sion,/One must say as a conclusion:fBelieves

in magnetism . . . animal!” Franklin was notopposed to cures based on patient psychol-

ogy. In 1784, he wrote “my Sentiments con-

cerning the Cures perform’d . . . Mesmer . . . I

cannot but fear that the Expectation of great

Advantage from the new Method of treating

Diseases, will prove a Delusion. That Delu-sion may however in some cases be of use

while it lasts. There are in every great City a

Number of Persons who are never in health,

because they are fond of Medicines and al-

ways taking them, whereby they derange the

natural Functions, and hurt their Constitu-

tions. If these people can be persuaded to

forbear their Drugs in Expectation of beingcured by only the Physician’s Finger or an

Iron Rod pointing at them, they may possibly

find good Effects tho’ they mistake the

Cause.”

rnent of nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR) (a term coined by Rabi) inatomic and molecular beams in 1938.The Nobel Prize for physics wasawarded to Stern in 1943 and to Rabiin 1944 for work on atomic and nu-clear magnetic phenomena.

NMR has been the subject of in-tense research since 1936. A pioneerin this field was the physicist CornelisGorter (b 1907), who published sev-eral articles (6-10) on his unsuccessfulattempts to detect the phenomenon(it was his bad luck to use a difficultexperimental technique and an inap-propriate sample in his studies). NMR

in a solid was first reported in 1946 by

two research teams: One comprisedFelix Bloch (1905-1983) (Fig 22a), Wit-ford Hansen (b 1928), and MartinPackard (b 1921) (11-14); the other,Edward Purcell (b 1912) (Fig 22b),Henry Torrey (b 1911), and RobertPound (b 1919) (15). These two teamsworked independently on this phe-nomenon, unaware of the other’s re-search, at universities on oppositecoasts of the United States (respec-tively, Stanford and Harvard). Fortheir NMR work, Bloch and Purcellwere jointly awarded the Nobel prizefor physics in 1952.

It is interesting that Bloch and Pur-cell perceived NMR in very differentways. To describe how so, we willgive a short exposition of NMR. Whena group of atoms whose nuclei pos-sess a magnetic moment is placed in astrong static magnetic field, their nu-clei can be conceived of as magneticdipoles precessing about this field at afrequencyf, which is defined by themultiple of a constant that is uniqueto those atoms (their gyromagneticratio, -y) and the magnitude of thefield (call it B). This results in the Lar-mor equation-f = -yB/2’rr -namedfor the Irish physicist Joseph Larmor(1857-1942), who introduced theequation in 1896 in connection with aclassical analysis of the Zeernan effect(16,17). II these dipoles are sirnulta-neously irradiated by an electromag-netic radio-frequency (RF) field of afrequency matching-in resonance-that of their precession, they will in-teract with that field. Physically, thismeans that the nuclei will absorb en-ergy from the RF field and changetheir nuclear state. This change can beexperimentally detected in either ofone of two ways: first, by fixing theRF frequency and monitoring theamount of power the atoms absorbfrom it as a function of the strength ofthe static field in which they are im-mersed (ie, their precession fre-quency), and second, by fixing thestrength of the static field (the nuclei’sprecession frequency) and monitoringwith an antenna the strength of theinteraction of the magnetic dipoleswith the RF field as a function of thefrequency of the RF field. The formerexperiment can be described in termsof quantum physics as the resonanceabsorption of energy-Purcell’s ex-periment, done on paraffin. The latterexperiment can be described in termsof the precession of a magnetic dipoleand the induction of an electromotiveforce or voltage in a detection coil(antenna)-Bloch’s experiment, doneon water. At the time that these two

men almost simultaneously reported

a. b.Figure 22. (a) Felix Bloch and (b) Edward Purcell, corecipients of the Nobel Prize for physics

in 1952 for their independent discovery of NMR. This history would be different except for an

accident. Bloch has said that his group’s first attempts to see the NMR signal were in vain be-

cause of his miscalibration of the electromagnet they were using. It was while they were turn-ing off the magnet (14) to make some adjustments that they first saw the NMR signal “drifting

across the oscilloscope screen.” (Reprinted with permission of the AlP Meggers Gallery of No-

bel Laureates.)

610 #{149}Radiology September 1991

Figure 21. DrJohn Elliotson. A briffiant cli-

nician and, by all accounts, one of the ablestphysicians in London. Among his friendswere Charles Dickens (1812-1870) andWilliam Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863).The latter dedicated his work Pendennis toElliotson:

To DrJohn Elliotson

My Dear Doctor,Thirteen months ago when it seemed

likely that this story had come to a close akind friend brought you to my bedside,whence in all probability I should never haverisen but for your constant watchfulness andskill. I like to recall your great goodness andkindness (as well as many acts of others,showing quite a surprising friendship andsympathy) at that time, when kindness andfriendship were most needed and welcome.

And as you would take no other fee but

thanks, let me record here in behalf of me

and mine, and subscribe myselfYours, most sincerely and gratefully,

W.M. Thackeray

their experiments it was not apparentto them, or to anyone else, that theywere presenting the same effect. Thisrealization came only when the two

research groups met in the summer of1946. The terminology of the two ex-periments has fused over time; thus,we speak about both nuclear mag-netic resonance and free inductiondecay.

NMR developed quickly as a scien-tific discipline. Bloch introduced theconcepts of a “thermal” or “longi-tudinal” relaxation time (Ti) and a“transversal” relaxation time (T2) in aseminal article (12) he wrote in 1946.

In that same article he derived the“Bloch equations,” which are still thebasis of all analyses of NMR experi-ments. He also provided the rationalefor the use in NMR of those sub-stances that are called contrast agentsin magnetic resonance imaging:”...

such long relaxation times can be in-convenient for the observation of theinduction effect. It is recommendable,in this case, to add to the substance acertain percentage of paramagneticatoms or molecules. They will essen-tially act as catalysts . . . greatly short-ening the relaxation time . . . even ifthey are present in a small percentageand do not otherwise affect the nucleiunder consideration.” Six weeks afterPurcell first detected NMR, a newgraduate assistant began work at hislaboratory: Nicolaas Bloembergen (b1920), a Dutch physicist displaced bythe devastation of the European re-search laboratories caused by WorldWar II. Two years after Bloembergen’sarrival, he, Purcell, and Pound pub-lished a theory of nuclear magneticrelaxation (18). So widespread hasbeen its application that, over time,the theory and its expository articlehave taken as their name the initialsof their three authors: BPP. Bloember-gen was one of the recipients of the1981 Nobel prize in physics “for hiscontribution to the development oflaser spectroscopy.”

The need to sustain the NMR signalover extended periods of time for themeasurement of NMR phenomenaspurred Erwin Hahn (19) (b 1921) tothe development of the spin echo in1950. This technique was subse-quently improved in 1954 by HermanCarr (b 1924) and Edward Purcell (20).The variation on their work, which

was done by Saul Meiboom (b 1916)and David Gill (21) in 1958 would oneday produce one of the standard im-aging pulse sequences-what we nowcall the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gillspin-echo pulse sequence. The intro-duction in 1966 by Richard Ernst (b1933) and Weston Anderson (22) (b1928) of Fourier transform techniquesto the analysis of magnetic resonancephenomena marks the moment whenthe technical and analytic armamen-tarium necessary for nuclear magneticresonance imaging became complete.Fourier transform NMR was em-ployed in the study of molecular dy-namics by Robert Vold (23) (b 1942) in1968 and by Raymond Freeman (24-26) (b 1924) in 1969. The application tomagnetic resonance imaging of theirexperimental technique would yieldthe second standard imaging pulsesequence, the inversion-recoverypulse sequence.

The NMR techniques that led inex-orably to imaging research were ap-plied to biologic systems as quickly asthey were ushered in. Thomas Shawet at (27-32) used NMR to monitor thewater content of foods as early as1951. Complementary work on bio-logic samples was done concurrentlyby Erik Odeblad (33-45) at the Karo-

linska Institute in Sweden. For 30 years,

this tenacious investigator producedabout 20 articles on his inquiries intothe NMR properties of every conceiv-able human tissue, fluid, and secretion,

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}611

Figure 23. Paul Lauterbur. The techniquethat he formulated to produce an NMR im-age couples, within the body, magnetic field

gradients and RF fields; therefore, he de-

cided to name it zeugmatography, from the

Greek word �#{128}Irjp.a (zeugma), meaning “the

result ofjoining together.” The technique

has flourished-the name has not. (Photo-

graph courtesy of Dr Lauterbur.)

including blood serum (34), cervicalmucus (35), human milk (36), vitreousfluid (37), eye tissue (37), vaginal cells(38), uterine glandular secretions (39),and sputum (44). In 1959, JeromeSinger (46,47) (b 1921) created amethod for the measurement of bloodflow rates, which he named “spintagging.” It was used in 1970 by himand Oliver Morse (48) to quantitatethe blood flow in the arm of a child(Singer’s daughter). It is the basis ofseveral magnetic resonance imagingtechniques now under developmentfor angiographic and pseudo-Dopplerimaging.

While Shaw, Odeblad, their collab-orators, and other researchers wereemploying NMR to quantitate thewater content and the NMR“signatures” (Ti and T2) of tissues,another group of scientists pressedNMR to the analysis of the physico-chemical characteristics, behavior,and dynamics of water in living sys-tems. One of the earliest reports dem-onstrating that NMR could be used tostudy the structure of water in livingmicroorganisms was written in 1964by the Mexican scientist Jorge Cerb#{243}n(b 1930) (49). His investigation of thewater NMR signal from suspensionsof microorganisms suggested to him“that the water spectrum in microor-ganisms appears similar to those in

inorganic gels that have an orientedstructure of water with mobility lim-ited by adsorption processes”-possi-bly the first allusion in the NMR liter-ature to the theory of “free” and“bound” water in living cells, the per-ceived source of contrast in magneticresonance images. Subsequent re-search in that same year by Cerb#{243}nenabled him to observe the lipid NMRsignal in microorganisms and that ionicconcentration affects the behavior of thelipid phase (50). Ionic complexing in

muscle tissue soon became a separateline of NMR research (51-54).

NMR evidence for the existence of“ordered water” in living cells wasthe research goal for many scientists(55-66) during 1965-1971. It emergedfrom the NMR spectra of water in sys-tems as varied as relaxed and con-tracted frog skeletal muscle (55), par-tially dried yeast cells (57), decom-posing fish musde (58), oriented (withrespect to the NMR spectrometermagnetic field) rabbit sciatic nerve(59), and rat skeletal muscle (63). Itwas only a matter of time beforesomeone would try to see what, ifany, differences appeared in the NMR“signature” of a tissue as a conse-quence of disease-and there hangsthe tale of the origin of magnetic reso-nance imaging.

In 1971, Raymond Damadian (b1936) reported (67) that NMR couldbe used to discriminate between ma-lignant tumors and normal tissue. Ef-forts to reproduce this work werequickly set in motion (68-71). In Sep-tember 1971, Paul Lauterbur (b 1928)(Fig 23) watched Leon Saryan as hecompiled the NMR spectra of differ-ent rat tissues (71,72). In Lauterbur’sown words (73), “although therewere clear differences . . . thereseemed no plausible reason for thedifferences . . . even normal tissuesdiffered markedly among themselvesin NMR relaxation times, and I won-dered whether there might be someway to noninvasively map out suchquantities within the body. The prin-ciple upon which a technique might

be based, the encoding of spatial co-ordinates by known magnetic fieldshapes, occurred to me the sameevening. Over the next several days, ageneral method.. . to generate a trueimage . . . became clear.” The tersepaper that he sent to Nature describ-ing his methods was rejected because“it was not of sufficiently wide signifi-cance for inclusion in Nature” (a state-ment to be pondered when one con-siders that Nature rejected the firstpaper describing the Krebs cyde). Bywriting a lengthy rejoinder to this judg-

ment and rewriting his manuscript in amore exuberant style, he producedthe result that he desired-the paper(74) was accepted by Nature and pub-lished in its March 16, 1973, issue.

The field of NMR was prepared toincarnate Lauterbur’s idea. Programsto enlarge and refine NMR spectrom-eters for biologic research had been inexistence for some time. It had beendemonstrated in 1966 that it was pos-sible to simultaneously monitor in vitrothe electric activity and the NMR spec-trum of a beating turtle heart (75)-anamazing feat for its time. In 1967 Tho-mas Lingon (b 1941) constructed anNMR spectrometer large enough tosurround a human arm (76). One thatcould contain an anesthetized rat (77)was built by Jasper Jackson (b 1926) in1968. Irwin Weisman did his 1972 tu-mor research (70) on rat tails in vivo.Thus, Lauterbur was able to publishhis first image-a cross-sectional im-age of two vials of water-in 1973.Within a year of the appearance ofthat image, four methods of NMR im-aging had been demonstrated by fourgeographically disparate groups (78-81); the race to produce the first NMRimage of a human had begun. But thatis another story. #{149}

Acknowledgments: Many people have helpedme in the production of this manuscript. JeffreyWeinreb, MD, prodded me into assembling myresearch on the tangled history of medicine and

magnetism into a (somewhat) readable manu-script. Immeasurable thanks to Priscilla Kronish,

PhD, and Anne Volpe, New York UniversityBobst Science Library. That for 20 years theyhave allowed me to ask them to find for me “thebook with the blue/green/yellow cover that!was reading last week” makes them candidatesfor canonization. That they have always foundthe book in question makes them exemplars oftheir profession. My ability to write this articlewith almost exdusively the sources available atBobst Library is proof of the depth of its collec-tions. Martha Hehners and Tony Jalandonibeautifully-and tolerantly-photographed,and rephotographed, and re-re-photographedthe illustrations included herein. Lionel Casson,PhD, professor emeritus of the New York Urn-versity Classics department and a dear friend ofmine, saved my sanity by tracking down the lost(to my mind) reference to magnetic islands inPtolemy’s Geography (couldn’t you have done itbefore I spent 2 months reading Procopius?). Healso-without chastisement-helped me makeuse of t’ie tattered remnants of my neglectedGreek and Latin. Jean Le Corbeiller, PhD, andIsaac Asimov, PhD, old friends whose praise ofthis manuscript (“we didn’t know that youknew so much”) I accept with some qualms,helped me maintain, in modern verse, the flavorof Old French doggerels. Irvin Kricheff, MD,proofread the manuscript-and gleefullypointed out my one (absent-minded) historicalerror (no one will ever know it). Howard Simon,MD, of Philips Medical Systems, assisted me intracking down some details of the modern de-velopment of NMR. My awe of Diane Lang, myeditor at RSNA, is without bounds. Her knowl-edge of the elephantine arcana associated withpublishing has immeasurably improved the

612 #{149}Radiology September 1991

form of this manuscript. Finally, my thanks toIrene Ivers who searched the RSNA files for aphoto of Dr Lauterbur.

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