A short history of the origins of radiography in Australia

Radiography (2009) 15, e42ee47

available at www.sciencedirect.com

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A short history of the origins of radiography in Australia Tony Smith* University Department of Rural Health, Faculty of Health, University of Newcastle, Locked Bag 9783 NEMSC, Tamworth NSW 2348, Australia Received 27 May 2009; revised 13 July 2009; accepted 13 July 2009 Available online 12 August 2009

KEYWORDS Radiography history; X-ray discovery; Australia

Abstract At the time of Ro ¨entgen’s discovery of X-rays, Australia was in a period of social transition. Federation under a centralised Australian government was at hand, while regional population centres were growing rapidly under various influences, such as the gold rush of the 1850s, the opening up of new pastoral land and the Great Drought of the 1890s. Reports of Ro ¨entgen’s discovery first appeared in Australian newspapers towards the end of January 1896. The first limited description of his experimental techniques appeared on the 15th February, arousing excitement in the antipodean scientific community. Independent attempts were made to produce X-ray images at several locations in Australia, the necessary apparatus being widely available. Three men have been separately credited with having been the first to produce a radiographic image using the techniques described by Ro ¨entgen. Thomas Rankin Lyle, a Professor at Melbourne University performed a demonstration on the 3rd March 1896, X-raying a colleague’s foot. The image was reproduced in the newspaper the following day. Lyle also performed a pre-surgical foreign body localisation on 12th June. Meanwhile, electrician and amateur scientist, Walter Filmer, produced a radiograph at Newcastle, also to localise a needle prior to surgical removal. Although the date of this examination is uncertain, it reportedly took place within days of the 15th February newspaper story, making it both the first successful attempt at radiography and the first medical use of X-rays in Australia. Filmer was later appointed to Newcastle Hospital as honorary ‘X-ray operator’. The third was a catholic priest and Science Master at St Stanislaus’ College at Bathurst in western New South Wales, Father Joseph Slattery. On 25th July 1896 he X-rayed the hand of a former student to locate gunshot pellets, saving the hand from amputation. All three men were remarkable for their scientific knowledge and ability and all are deserving of the title of early Australian X-ray pioneer. This paper tells each of their stories. ª 2009 The College of Radiographers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

* Tel.: þ61 2 6767 8464; fax: þ61 2 6761 2355. E-mail address: [email protected] 1078-8174/$ - see front matter ª 2009 The College of Radiographers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.radi.2009.07.005

Origins of radiography in Australia

Introduction The discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Ro ¨entgen on the 8th November 1895 was a major technological step forward in medical science and a global historical event. However, people make history and so its relevance can best be appreciated when placed in the context of the time and the people who played a role in the dissemination of this remarkable discovery. The concept of being able to produce images of bones and joints by generating a beam of invisible rays was in the realm of science fiction at the time, so when it reached the press, the story spread across the world rapidly (for those times) even to farthest flung British colony in the Southern hemisphere, Australia. The scientific community grasped the concept and, having the necessary apparatus readily available, was quick to find local medical applications for this revolutionary technology.

Discovery in context: Australia in 1895 In November 1895, at the time of Ro ¨entgen’s momentous discovery, Australia was still largely an agrarian society, with an economy based on the export wheat, wool and other primary produce, largely to England, the Mother Country. The ‘emancipists’ had succeeded in putting an end to convict transportation only twenty-seven years earlier, with the last transport discharging its cargo on Western Australian soil in 1868.1 Australian society had matured beyond the status of a penal colony. The gold rushes of 1850s, together with the opening up of vast tracts of agricultural land, had attracted large numbers of fortuneseekers away from the major cities, resulting in the establishment of new inland settlements, some of which were by then burgeoning cities in their own right. However, in the mid-1890s south-eastern Australia entered a period that would later be known as the Great Drought, lasting for eight years.2 Families had no choice but to walk off their farms, all of their livestock and crops having died and their land turned to dust. Through migration, the regional cities were growing rapidly. At this same time there was also a growing sense of national identity, although ‘the nation’ still consisted of a Commonwealth of separate British colonies. In 1895, constitutional Federation of the States and the establishment of a centralised Australian government were still five years in the future, although the notion of Federation had been debated for more than a decade, often passionately and heatedly. Henry Parkes, who is known as the ‘Father of Federation’, had expressed his belief in amalgamation of the colonies as early as 1867 and on 24 October 1889 he gave an address at Tenterfield in northern New South Wales (NSW) in which he called for ‘a great national government for all Australians’ [2, p. 181]. Parkes did not live to see Federation in 1901 but died in April 1896, about six months after the discovery of X-rays in Europe and about the same time that X-ray technology was first being applied in clinical diagnosis in Australia. The announcement of Ro ¨entgen’s discovery, therefore, came at a time in Australian history of increasing urbanisation and social change. Modernisation was occurring in decentralised and regionalised communities. Perhaps this

e43 explains why, firstly, two of the three first reports of the production of X-rays in Australia occurred outside of the major, colonial capital cities and, secondly, why there has been controversy over the claim of having been ‘the first’ in Australia to produce X-rays using the instrumentation and techniques described by Ro ¨entgen.

Who produced the first X-ray images in Australia? The first report of Ro ¨entgen’s discovery appeared in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on 31st January 1896 with the following words: ‘The discovery of Ro ¨entgen’s that photographic indications of substances hidden behind opaque matter can be obtained is being utilised with astounding results in surgical operations.’[3, p. 41] Similar reports also appeared in newspapers in Melbourne, Brisbane, Launceston and Perth. This news was apparently based on reports that had appeared in the London press in early January.3 It had taken almost a month for news of the discovery to reach the Australian general public and scientific fraternity, a reflection of the fact that, at that time, Australia was only tenuously linked to the rest of world by telegraph and that most news still travelled by sea to reach the antipodes. The first newspaper report contained no information about the true nature of the discovery or of the apparatus and techniques used. Although the English translation of Ro ¨entgen’s first paper appeared in Nature on the 23rd January 1896, it too did not reach Australia until much later, although the precise date is not known [3, p. 43]. On the 1st February 1896, a further report appeared in the Daily Telegraph, causing local experts in photography to conclude that the reports were either a hoax or a distortion of recent news about the use of conventional photography for examining inside the human body [4, p. 19]. It was not until the 15th February that a more comprehensive report appeared in the Australian press. That report read, in part: ‘[Professor Ro ¨entgen] uses the light emitted from one of Crooke’s vacuum tubes, through which an electric current is passed to act upon an ordinary photographic plate. The invisible rays, of whose existence there is already ample evidence, show this peculiarity, that to them wood or other organic substances are transparent whilst metal or bones, animal and human alike, are opaque.’ [3, p. 42] Though scant information was available at that stage, it was enough for those in Australia who possessed a Crooke’s tube and an induction coil, together with scientific knowledge, to attempt to replicate Ro ¨entgen’s experiments. The apparatus were commonly available in scientific laboratories and electrical workshops and were often used to demonstrate the illumination that occurred when an electrical current was passed through an evacuated glass tube. And so, the question arises of who produce the first X-ray images in Australia. There are three contenders for this accolade, with the claim of having been ‘first’ made on behalf of each of them in different sources; hence the controversy. The contenders are Sir Thomas Rankin Lyle, Mr Walter Drowley Filmer and Father Joseph Patrick Slattery.

e44 On the 7th September 1995, as part of a series on Australian science, Australia Post issued a postage stamp depicting these three men, the first day cover of which is shown in Fig. 1. The story of each of these three early Australian pioneers of the science of radiography is described briefly below, with a timeline of significant events given in Fig. 2.

Professor Sir Thomas Rankin Lyle It has been claimed in some early Australian literature about the discovery of X-rays that the first X-ray picture in Australia was a Ro ¨entgenogram produced by Professor Thomas Rankin Lyle at the University of Melbourne.5 However, the precise date of Lyle’s initial success in producing X-rays is unknown, although it was probably at the end of February or beginning of March 1896.3 It is widely known, however, that on the 3rd March Lyle conducted a public demonstration of radiography in the presence of a reporter for the Melbourne Argus. The well-known image is of the foot of one of Lyle’s colleagues, Professor Orme Masson.4 He used a Crooke’s tube that he had made himself and an induction coil with a six-inch spark. The picture was reproduced in the Argus the next day and the story stated that ‘after an exposure of 20 minutes the plate was developed and a clear image was obtained of the bones.’ [3, p. 43]. This appears to have been the first published media report of the use of X-rays in Australia. It preceded a further article written by Lyle and published in the Australasian newspaper on the 14th March, which is credited as being the first article in that newspaper related to the pioneering of radiography in Australia.4 Lyle performed several subsequent public demonstrations of the use of Xrays. Thomas Rankin Lyle was a gifted scientist and a remarkable man in many ways. He was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1860 and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin in 1883 with gold medals in mathematics and experimental science.4 He continued working in advanced mathematics and physics. He accepted the position of Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Melbourne in 1889 and migrated to Australia, where he

T. Smith continued to build an outstanding scientific reputation, collaborating with other members of the Royal Society, including his first radiographic subject, Professor Masson. In addition to his academic achievements, Lyle represented Ireland in 5 international rugby test matches.4 He was an accomplished glass blower, a skill that he put to good use in blowing and evacuating his own Crooke’s tubes, and an expert photographer. Having read the newspaper report of the 15th February detailing Ro ¨entgen’s discovery, as well as possibly having heard news of the scientific article that appeared in the 23rd January issue of Nature, Lyle set to work with his colleagues to reproduce Ro ¨entgen’s successful experiments. By some accounts his initial efforts failed, success being dependent on the size of the tube and degree of evacuation, the nature of the residual gas and the length of the induction coil spark.3 Thus, it was not until some two weeks after the discovery of X-rays was announced in Australia that Lyle had perfected his technique. Some sources have also credited Lyle with being the first to have performed an X-ray examination which led to surgical removal of a foreign body.5 This occurred on the 12th June 1896 when Dr George Adlington Syme operated at Melbourne Hospital to remove a needle from a patient’s hand immediately following localisation with radiography performed by Lyle. This story was reported in the Argus on the following day.5 Like most men of science at this time, Lyle’s interests were varied and despite his pioneering work in X-ray technology, his main interest was in the development of electrical power generation technology. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1912 but retired from his Melbourne University appointment in 1914, reportedly because of increasing disability due to a knee injury he sustained as a young man playing rugby.4 He was knighted in 1922 and the latter years of his career became the first chairman of the Victorian State Electricity Commission. He also held a number of senior appointments and directorships until he was invalided by a cerebral haemorrhage in 1940.4 He died four years later.

Figure 1 First day cover of an Australian postage stamp issued on 7th September 1995 depicting Joseph Slattery, Thomas Lyle & Walter Filmer, early X-ray pioneers in Australia.

Origins of radiography in Australia

Figure 2

e45

A timeline of significant events related to the discovery of X-rays and their early use in Australia.

Mr Walter Drowley Filmer Walter Filmer was born in 1865 at Maitland in the lower Hunter Valley, about 30 km to the west of Newcastle and about 200 km north of Sydney.6 He left school at the age of eleven and was apprenticed to a boot maker. His real interest, however, was in electricity and on completion of his apprenticeship he took up a position with the Postal Department, where he was appointed Assistant Telegraph Line Repairer in 1884.6 The following year he took up a position with the Department of Railways, which at that time was the largest single employer in Australia.2 In December 1889, Filmer was notified that he would be sent to England for twelve months of study and to gain experience with electrical signalling equipment and other new railway systems.6 This added enormously to his knowledge of electricity and was a turning point in his life. Filmer returned to Australia in 1891, bringing with him several pieces of electrical equipment that he had acquired during his overseas secondment, including a good quality Crooke’s tube and an induction coil with a ten-inch spark.6 He initially settled in Sydney, at Summer Hill, but by 1893 he had moved back to Newcastle where he continued to work for the Department of Railways. His interests included all things scientific, having become a member of Maitland Scientific Society in 1888, before his time in England. On his return to Newcastle he continued his studies in chemistry, mathematics, biology and photography at Newcastle Technical College,6 taking up residence in proximity to Newcastle Hospital in a terrace house that is still standing, in Church Street, close to Newcastle Beach. Dr William Eames, who was an Honorary Medical Officer at Newcastle Hospital, lived in the same block of terraces. He and Walter apparently shared some common scientific interests and it seems likely that Eames was aware of Filmer’s experiments with electricity.6

The precise timing of events is unclear but it seems probable that the newspaper report about Ro ¨entgen’s discovery on 15th February 1896 gave Filmer enough information to produce what was probably the first radiograph produced in Australia using the newly discovered Ro ¨entgen rays.6 The patient had a broken needle in his foot. The X-ray image showed its position and Dr Eames operated to successfully remove the foreign body, apparently the first image guided surgery to be undertaken in an Australian hospital. The exact date is not known but it must have been in the third week of February7 as one of Walter Filmer’s sons, Roy Filmer, was quite certain that his father produced this first X-ray picture within two days of the news arriving from overseas of Ro ¨entgen’s discovery.4 This would have a predated Lyle’s radiography of Professor Masson’s foot by about two weeks, and his localisation of the needle in the patient’s wrist by several months. Another of Filmer’s sons, however, Walter Harold Filmer, further claimed that he was his father’s first X-ray subject, his hand having been used in an experiment undertaken at the family’s Church Street home.6 If this is so, it must have predated the examination performed at the hospital and, given Filmer’s expert knowledge of electricity and the high quality apparatus he had available, may have predated the first comprehensive report that appeared in the Australian press on the 15th February of the European-based discovery of X-rays. Subsequently, Walter Filmer made his X-ray equipment and services available to the hospital and in October 1896 he and his brother Ethelbert (Bert) were appointed by the Hospital Board as Honorary Electricians.6 Essentially, this made them the first radiographers appointed at Newcastle Hospital, a position that Walter held until 1910.6 One of the early X-ray tubes used by the Filmer brothers at Newcastle Hospital is still housed in the scientific collection at the Newcastle Regional Museum. Walter died in 1944 and his obituary hailed him as a great electrical engineer and

e46 naturalist. He was survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter.8 While it refers briefly to his work with X-rays and his appointment to the hospital as ‘honorary X-ray operator’, he was best known for his biological work in entomology, palaeontology and marine science. He is credited with the discovery of several species of insects and fossils, some of which are named in his honour.

Father Joseph Patrick Slattery Like Thomas Lyle, Joseph Slattery was born in Ireland, at Waterford, famous for its glassware, and like Lyle he was highly skilled at glass-blowing.4 He went to school in Waterford and then in Dublin, before entering the catholic seminary in 1886. Two years into his training as a priest, however, he was posted to Bathurst in NSW, where the Vincentian order had taken charge of St Charles Seminary and St Stanislaus’ College. He was ordained in 1891, at Bathurst. Although his principal interest was in physics, he also taught German, geology and photography.4 Bathurst is about 200 km directly west of Sydney, on the opposite side of the Blue Mountains, which is a deeply dissected sandstone plateau that was an impenetrable barrier to the early Sydney population. Once crossed, however, the Western Slopes and Plains of NSW proved to be rich grazing land. Furthermore, gold was discovered in the district in 1851 and the goldfields, centred on the original site of gold discovery at Ophir Creek,2 became populated with swarms of prospectors and miners eager to make their fortune. Many men simply abandoned their job in Sydney and trudged what had become a well-worn road over the mountains, often leaving wives and children behind in Sydney. Bathurst was a boomtown at this time and soon became the principal centre of commerce and colonial government west of the Blue Mountains. It typified the growing regional communities of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in NSW and it was here that a catholic priest, who was the Master of Science at Saint Stanislaus’ College, became one of Australia’s radiography pioneers. It has been claimed on his behalf that he was in fact the ‘first or second’ to produce an X-ray image for medical purposes in Australia,9 which seems unlikely given what we know of the work of Lyle and Filmer. It is probable that Father Slattery’s work with X-rays began in March 1896, although there is no recorded evidence until July of that year, when a former student at the College, Eric Thompson, was shot in the hand.4,9 The doctor who attended Thompson thought that amputation was the only possible treatment until he was apparently reminded by Eric’s father, who was the local postmaster, of Father Slattery’s success with X-ray production.4 It seems therefore, that Slattery’s work was already widely known in the district. The radiographs revealed the position of the gun-pellets which were then removed and the boy’s hand saved. The story was reported the next day in the Bathurst Free Press and, before long, doctors were referring cases such as fractures, dislocations and other bone and joint problems to Father Slattery for examination.4 Slattery gained a great deal of notoriety for his work with X-rays and extended the boundaries of knowledge of this new branch of science. In August 1896 the College purchased a phosphorescent screen4 which permitted real-time

T. Smith visualisation of moving body parts, rather than requiring the production of a still image. This appears to be earliest known application of fluoroscopy in Australia. Slattery also corresponded with Ro ¨entgen about a ‘species of regulator’ he developed to reduce the beam hardening that resulted as the vacuum within focussed tubes decayed with prolonged use.4 It is also believed that he supplied high quality X-ray tubes to Ro ¨entgen. He continued providing an X-ray service in the Bathurst district until 1911.9 One of the more remarkable facts about Father Slattery’s work is that a collection of his original radiographic plates and much of the apparatus that he used are still housed in the Slattery Museum at St Stanislaus’ College, together with other of his scientific equipment.4,9 At one time it was reported in the Sydney Mail that: ‘Perhaps the most interesting experiments with Ro ¨entgen rays were made at this institution’ [4, p. 29]. Slattery’s other scientific interests extended to another new science, that of wireless telegraphy. He presented several papers on the topic4 and was one of the first to transmit a wireless telegraph signal in Australia.9 He also produced colour photographs and was adept at carpentry, as well as glass-blowing.4 He provided electric lighting in the dining hall of the College and installed electric bells. In 1911 he was transferred to Sydney and during World War I he travelled throughout NSW and Queensland providing spiritual support to families who had lost their men on far off battlefields. He did not return to work in Bathurst, however, where he is memorialised by the Father Slattery Wing of St Stanislaus’ College, but died in 1931 at the age of 64.

Conclusion These were three remarkable men of science, who rightly deserve to be remembered for their pioneering achievements in medical radiography in Australia. They came from very different sectors of society: a distinguished university professor; a boot maker-come-telegraph line repairer, turned electrician and amateur scientist; and an Irish-born catholic priest who taught science at a secondary College. They also shared a great deal in common. They were all highly intelligent and high achievers in their fields of expertise, while also having a variety of other active scientific interests, other than the technology of radiography. All were adept at science and fascinated by electricity. Consequently, they all had the necessary apparatus and the ability to assemble a rudimentary X-ray machine, with limited instructions. All three had an interest in photography, and both Lyle and Slattery were expert glassblowers, knowledge and skills they were able to apply in producing radiographic images. From the timeline it is apparent that Walter Filmer produced the first radiographic images in Australia and also performed the first pre-surgical radiography to localise a metallic foreign body. Of the three, Filmer was also the only one to be appointed to a hospital, an honorary position he held for 14 years. This is reasonable justification for counting him amongst the first radiographers to be officially appointed at a hospital in Australia, although his scientific achievements were more focussed on biology, especially later in his life. Similar appointments were undoubtedly made at other Australian hospitals around the same time or soon after.

Origins of radiography in Australia Indeed, there are many other interesting stories in the literature about the early Australian pioneers of radiography.

References 1. Bateson C. The convict ships: 1787e1868. Sydney, NSW: Library of Australian History; 1974. 2. Horne D. The story of the Australian people. Sydney, NSW: Reader’s Digest; 1985. 3. Hammersley H. Radiation science and Australian medicine 1896e1914. Historical Records of Australian Science 1982;5(3): 41e63.

e47 4. Ryan J, Sutton K, Baigent M. Australasian radiology: a history. Sydney: McGraw-Hill; 1996. 5. Trainor JP. Salute to the X-ray pioneers of Australia. Sydney: W Watson & Sons Ltd; 1946. 6. Owen M. Walter Drowley Filmer, 1895e1944: Australian X-ray pioneer. Journal of the Australian College of Radiologists 1965; 9(24):24e35. 7. Owen M. Newcastle pioneer in X-rays. Newcastle Morning Herald; 6th November 1965. 8. Engineer and naturalist: late Mr W.D. Filmer. Newcastle Morning Herald; 1944. 9. Innes B. Radiography in Australia, 1896. The Radiographer December 1994;41(4):144e5.