Montreal Museum exhibit provides clear picture of advances in medical imaging.

Abstract

An exhibit at the McCord Museum of Canadian History, which runs until November, marks the centennial of the discovery of the x-ray. Among the items on display are a portable field x-ray machine used during World War I and one of the machines commonly found in shoe stores between 1930 and 1950 to x-ray customers' feet. The exhibit also features one of the first scanners used in North America. Dr. Denis Melançon, a radiologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute, was the driving force behind the McCord exhibit. "I wanted to show [not only] the historical and scientific aspects of the discovery, but also its medical and social applications," he says.