Historical Perspective

Manuel R. Mourino, PhD

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

then, from the heart of one of those stone-a magnetic oxide of iron: tween the [lodejstone and the iron. new lights,/there came a voice that Fe304). This, legend has it, is how the When this space is emptied and a drew me to itself,/(I was the needle inhabitants of the foothills of Mount large tract in the middle is left void, pointing to the star) [DANTE, The Ida, consecrated to the Mother of the then atoms of the iron . . . slide and Divine Comedy, Vol III: Paradise, xii, Gods (Ida), came to be the first to dis- tumble into the vacuum . . . the 28-301 cover and work iron and why, in the [whole mass] itself follows . . . the air ancient world, Magnesia ad Sipylum situated at the back of the [whole (home of the Magnetes) was a source mass] pushes and shoves it forward EOPLE have been aware of magne- P from behind.” Why are some materi- tism from the earliest times. of magnets (‘ Ma’yvfrrLff XCOoa [mag- Their attempts to understand, and netis lithos], meaning the Magnesian als immune from the lodestone’s ef- stone) or lodestones (lead stones- fects? “Some are held fast by their explain, this phenomenon have en- gendered and/or abetted religious stones that point the way). weight . . . gold. Others cannot be For over 2,000 years the ability of moved anywhere, because their loose persecution, a proof that the earth is lodestones to attract iron filings and texture [due to the large air spaces round, elixirs of life, cures for epi- lepsy, devices to explore the earth the ability of amber rods when between the atoms that form them] and navigate its seas, the French Rev- rubbed with fur to attract small pieces allows the effluence [emanation of olution, and an instrument that can of paper, foil, and other lightweight atoms from the lodestone] to pass generate three-dimensional views of objects were considered manifesta- through intact . . . wood.” the internal organs of living creatures. tions of the same phenomenon. The The “stream of atoms” from the lodestone was put to artistic use in Quite often, those searchers were mechanisms of magnetism and elec- trostatics were considered to be con- Egypt in one of the most grandiose physicians.. . and other odd charac- building projects ever. Deinokrates ters. substantial. The consequences of this have reverberated throughout his- The record of the discovery in the (ca ?-278 iic)-the Macedonian or, Western world of the first magnetic tory. possibly, Rhodian architect to Alex- What is the nature of the lodestone ander the Great (356-323 BC)-is cred- substance-a poem by Nicander of according to the early Greeks and Ro- ited by Pliny the Elder in Historiae Colophon (2nd century BC)-is mans? The answer is in De Rerum Nat- known from a footnote in Historiae Naturalis XXX VII with designing for the Pharaoh of Egypt Ptolemy 11(309- Naturalis XXXVII, the 37-volume ura (On the nature of things), the only work of the Roman naturalist Pliny surviving work of the Roman poet 247 BC), the Arsinoeon, a temple in Titus Lucretius Cams (96-55 BC); the honor of his full sister/second wife/ the Elder (23-79 AD). Circa 1000 BC, the theme is the atomistic theory formed sister-in-law/stepmother-to-his-first- shepherd Magnes, the eponymous progenitor of the Magnetes (Magne- by the Greek philosophers Leukippos wife Arsinoe II Philadelphos (ca 316- (ca 500 BC), Demokritos (460-370 BC), 270 BC. In it, her iron cult statue was sians), was walking on Mount Ida in and Epicurus (341-270 BC). Within to be levitated by means of a vault of the Troad in Mysia (now Turkey). that theory, the atomus (Latin for the lodestone (she did, after all, love Suddenly, he was strongly drawn to [4i.Xo, phileo] her brother [#{226}8#{128}X4xSa, the earth by the tacks in his sandals. Greek, a [not] + temon [cut])-the uncuttable, innumerable, indivisible, adelphos] well). According to Pliny, He dug to ascertain the cause and dis- ever-moving unit of matter-was the Deinokrate’s death put a halt to that covered magnetite (the mineral lode- ultimate constituent of the world. In phase of the project. His demise may De Rerum Natura, Lucretius states that have been opportune. It is highly im-

Index terms: Magnetic resonance (MR) #{149}Ra- “if you think atoms can stop their probable (in fact, inconceivable) that diology and radiologists, history course, refrain from movement, and naturally occurring lodestone could by cessation cause new kinds of mo- be arranged in the form of a vault to Radiology 1991; 180:593-612 tion, you are far astray indeed. Since accomplish this architect’s vision. there is void through which they Who knows how Ptolemy II would move, all fundamental motes must be have reacted to Deinokrate’s failure? From the Department of Radiology, New impelled, either by their own weight The Arsinoeon was not the first of York University Medical Center, 560 First Aye, or by some force outside them.” Thus, Deinokrate’s building projects that New York, NY 10016. Received January 11, 1991; for a lodestone to attract iron it must revision requested February 22; revision re- “emit a dense stream or emanation of ceived April 1; accepted May 13. Address re- print requests to the author. atoms, which dispels by a process of Abbreviations:NMR = nuclear magnetic reso- #{176}RSNA,1991 bombardment all the air that lies be- nance, RF = radio frequency. IIUHi IIU 593 8CCE was associated with, or marred by, AD, Greek physicians were prescribing death. He created the plan for the amber pills to stop hemorrhages, and foundation of the city in which Alex- the priests of Samothrace were selling ander would eventually be en- magnetic rings as a cure for arthritis. tombed-Alexandria (332 BC). The Many more medical cures based on hecatomb, or funeral pyre, that he these two materials were to follow, constructed in Babylon for Hephaes- but first, lodestones had to be put to tion (ca 356-324 BC, Alexander’s lover) the service of the True Faith. has itself become legend. His program Saint Augustine (354-430), the great to transform Mount Athos in the philosopher of the early Christian Chalcidice Peninsula in northeastern church, included a factual summary Greece into a colossal statue of Alex- of the early knowledge of electrostat- ander (height, 6,670 feet [2,032 m]), ics and magnetism in his magnum holding in one hand a city and in the opus De Civitate Dei (The city of God), other a goblet from which the moun- which he finished writing in 428. In it, tam streams might flow into the sea, he says that his “observation . . . [that] was halted (only!) by Alexander’s . . . the magnet, which by its mysteri- death. ous and sensible suction attracts the

The Greeks and the Romans sensed iron . . . has no effect on straw,” puz- that lodestones could be put to practi- zled him greatly and led him to the cal use. They also knew that they conclusion that “if such common phe- could be dangerous. The Alexandrian nomena be inexplicable . . . why astronomer Ptolemy (2nd century) should it be demanded of man that he writes in Geography: “And there are explain miracles by human reason?” reported to be as well ten more is- Given that the book De Civitate Dei lands in a row, called the Manoliai was one of the fundamental theologi- [that is to say, beyond the island of cal works of the early Christian Figure 1. A page from Peregrinus’ treatise Iabadiou, which is generally taken to church, it has been argued that mag- on magnetism. It contains the first drawing and description of the compass in the West- be Sumatra or Java, or perhaps Malay netic phenomena were one of the rea- em world. The compass points, Septemtri- mistaken for an island], amid which sons empirical scientific research was ones, Meridiens, Oriens, and Occidens, refer, they say that boats having iron nails suppressed in the Western world un- respectively, to what we now call the Little are held in check, perhaps because til the flourishing of religious plural- Bear (Ursa Minor) constellation (in Roman the Stone of Heracles [Hercules, the ism in the 16th century. times, the seven [septem] plough-oxen [hi- lodestone] is native there, and for this In 1289, Peter Peregrinus wrote the ones]), whose brightest star is Polaris (the North Star); noon or midday (Latin, medius/ reason shipbuilding is done in first great treatise on magnetism, Epis- dies), as the sun at its zenith (noon), always trenches.” A similar phenomenon is tola Petri Peregrini de Maricourt ad appears due south in the northern hemi- reported in The Arabian Nights-The Sygerum de Foucaucourt, Militem, De sphere; the constellation Orion (Latin, Tale of the Third Kalendar (Beggar): “to- Magnete (Fig 1). In it he tells the Oriens), whose brightest star, Betelgeuse, morrow we will come to an isle of reader to perform the following ex- appears in the northern hemisphere in the black rocks called the Magnetic periment: Round a lodestone; take an geographical east, in the winter before sun- set, and in the summertime before dawn; Mountain, against which the force of iron needle and place it over the and evening (Latin, occidens-sunset, the the water will dash us and destroy stone; draw a line on the stone along west). The modern names of the compass our ship. All her nails will fly from her the direction of the needle, thus di- points-north, south, east, and west-are of and cleave to the sides of the Mag- viding the stone along the middle; Teutonic origin and first appear in Old En- glish texts circa 800 AD. netic Mountain.. . and all the thou- repeat this procedure at many other sands of nails on our ten ships were places over the surface of the stone. If suddenly wrenched away and flew to the reader does this, Peregrinus says join themselves to the mountain. The that the reader will find the lines will ship opened out and fell asunder, and concentrate at two points on the the paradigm for all of the scientific we were thrown into the sea.” stone, just as the meridians of the treatises that followed it. The date of One could build with lodestones. earth come together at opposite geo- publication of this great work we One could destroy with them. Could graphic points. By analogy to astron- know only because at its end, Peregri- one use them to heal? Thales of Mile- omy, he named the convergence nus states, “Completed in camp, at tus (636?-546? BC), generally consid- points after the axis of revolution of a the siege of Lucera, in the year of our ered to be one of the founders of sphere (as in the firmament): ii#{243}Xor Lord 1289, eighth day of August.” It Western philosophy, regarded the (polos), or poles. The one that pointed has been conjectured that at the time soul as somehow producing motion. to the north celestial pole (or so he he wrote this he was an engineer in Hence, he postulated (if one believes thought) he named the “north pole”; the employ of the King of Sicily-the Aristotle [384-322 BC]) that both the its complement he named the “south man who was laying siege to Lucera. magnet, which moves iron, and am- pole.” The Epistola also contains the Most probably then, the honorific title ber, which attracts cloth and paper, first description in the Western world “Peregrinus” or “Pilgrim” (his full possess a soul. This is the first tenuous of a compass and how it can be used name appears to have been Pierre de link between man’s nature and these for sea navigation. Peregrmnus’ manu- Maricourt) was given to him by the inanimate materials, and it is the pri- script is the first extant example of the Pope for his participation in that siege mum mobile of the uncountable scientific or experimental method. In (as a Crusader) and not for having claims that have appeared through- it, all questioning of a phenomenon is gone on a pilgrimage to the Holy out history of the medical properties done without calling on any super- Land. Nothing else is known of his of the lodestone and amber. By 200 natural agencies. The Epistola became life.

594 #{149}Radiology September 1991 tion of nervous fluid towards the brain, the repulsing pole of a magnet is [should be] applied to the spine and to the head, and the attracting pole of other magnets to the abdomi- nal region” in order to effect a cure. Paracelsus’ teachings in the form of “animal magnetism” appear in the scientific works of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Attempts to prove them correct, and Paracelsus’ claim that magnets were a prime ingredient in his “elixir of life,” spurred much research during those times. Paracel- sus died in poverty at age 48. One story states that he died of a stroke; another states that he was murdered AVTHORIS CaRMN by agents of the physicians and Nonmeterrateget,ccdo.fcd raptus in altO apothecaries he had denounced. Con- IlluflTisuiuam do#{226}aper orauirum: sidering the man’s nature, it is likely Qjxicquiduenturis fpeabitPbcubusinaflIil3 he would prefer us to believe the lat- Cardanosnofc4nomcn &ufmcuzn Figure 2. Theophrastus Bombast von Ho- ter version. henheim, or Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus. Figure 3. Girolamo Cardano. Astrology led By the middle of the 16th century, This portrait was done by his contemporary, him to believe that he would not live to see the Venetian painter and Mannerist master 45 years of age, and hence he spent his early attempts were being made to under- Tintoretto Uacopo Robusti, 1518-1594). life in riotous living. Later he wrote books stand and to separate magnetic phe- discussing why the prediction had been nomena and the “amber effect.” In his wrong: “It was when I ought to have died treatise De Subtilitate (On subtlety) that I really began to live.” His writings on (1550), the Italian mathematician and A contemporary of Peregrinus, the mathematics are a major contribution to the physician Girolamo Cardano (1501- development of algebra. A contradictory scholar and Franciscan monk Roger soul, he presumed to cast the horoscope of 1576) (Fig 3) listed his evidence of Bacon (1220-1292) greatly praised the Christ; yet, in the fall of 1575-near the end why “the magnet stone and the am- Epistola. For his scientific teachings, of his life-he wrote in his autobiography, ber do not attract in the same way.” heresies, and attempts to bring the “One thing alone provides satisfaction to me: His studies were driven by his interest sciences into the curriculum of uni- to understand and grasp the meaning of all in the claim that amber had medicinal the wonders of the world would be more versity studies, Bacon was tortured properties and led him to postulate precious to me than the everlasting domin- and imprisoned by the Catholic ion of the universe; this I swear by all that is that all matter contains “humours” church. No one knows how the holy.” This engraving and its pendant poem and that the absorption and exuda- Church responded to Peregrmnus’ are the frontispiece of an edition of De Subtil- tion of these humours by matter ac- Epistola. itate that appeared in 1560. The poem’s senti- counts for its attraction or repulsion An astonishing number of beliefs ments express Cardano’s sense of self-worth: to another type of matter. The princi- “The earth will not cover me, but carried off had adhered to magnetism by the end ple of humours was applied to the into high heaven shall I be/Celebrated will I of the Middle Ages: Magnets could live through the mouths of learned men:! body’s organs (eg, in the context of draw gold from wells; garlic had the Wherever The Sun shall look in the years to magnetism: animal magnetism) and power to destroy magnetism; a mag- come,/There He will see Cardano and his to the treatment of disease (eg, again, net carried on a person could cure name.” in the context of magnetism: mesmer- arthritis and gout, draw poison from ism) well into the 18th century. Car- wounds, and cure baldness; when dano’s career as a physician was ifiled sprinkled on water, magnets spoke criticized and mockingly referred to with tribulation. At one point in his with a voice like that of an infant. as “Paracelsus,” meaning “greater life he was deprived of the legal right These myths, and many more, were than Celsus” (ca 25 Bc-50 AD, an early to practice medicine by the Milanese codified, amplified, and brought to Roman medical authority). He liked medical association. Many of his trials bear on the systematic treatment of the nickname and adopted it. Paracel- were of his own making. That this is disease by a man whose name has sus combined mysticism with his so can be deduced from the title of become synonymous with hyper- practical, empirical medical treat- the first of the 200-odd books that he bole-Theophrastus Bombast von Ho- ments. In his work Volumen Medicinae wrote: De Malo Recentiorum Medicorum henheim (aka Philippus Aureolus Paramirum, he writes that every per- LIsu Libellus (On the bad practice of Paracelsus, 1493-1541) (Fig 2), doctor son is a magnet, “possessing a mag- medicine in common use) (Venice, and alchemist. Paracelsus denounced netic power by which he may attract 1536). Galenic medicine (he and his students certain effluvia of a good and evil William Gilbert (1544-1603) (Fig publicly burned the works of the phy- quantity in the same manner as a 4)-fellow and president of the Royal sician Galen [129-199 or 130-200]). He magnet will attract iron.” Elsewhere, College of Physicians and the per- introduced the use of arsenic, mer- he asserts that the lodestone “attracts sonal physician of Queen Elizabeth I cury, sulfur, and other chemicals into all martial humours that are in the of England (1533-1603)-built on Car- the treatment of disease (especially human system.” Thus, for example, dano’s work and in 1600 produced his mercury treatments for syphilis). since the front (north) pole of a mag- book De Magnete Magneticisque Corpor- Asepsis during surgery was one of his net attracts and its back (south) pole ibus et de Magno Magnete Tellure Phys- teachings. For these actions and views repels, in cases of nervous “epilepsy iologia Nova (On the lodestone, mag- (and many others), he was widely where there is a greater determina- netic bodies, and on the great magnet

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}595 a. b. Figure 5. (a) Frontispiece of Gilbert’s book Dc Magnete. The drawing of a serpent twined Figure 4. William Gilbert, writer of De Mag- about a tau cross that appears on this page was then used extensively by physicians as a sort nete, of whom the English scientist Joseph of identifying crest. Its origin are two biblical quotes. The first-Numbers 21:4-9-details the

Priestly (1733-1804, discoverer of oxygen) origin of the serpent: “the people complained . . . In punishment the Lord sent among the said, “may justly be called the father of mod- people saraph serpents [horned vipers?], which bit the people so that many of them died ... em electricity, though it be true that he left Moses prayed . . . the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a saraph serpent and mount it on a pole, and his child in its very infancy.” In truth, he also if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover’ . . .“ The second-John 3:14-15- inspired a novel method of seduction. The makes the link between the serpent and the image of the True Cross: “And as Moses lifted up English dramatist and poet Ben Jonson (c the serpent in the desert, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that those who believe in 1572-1637) wrote his most famous play, The him may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” Over time, and in a fashion that is not Alchemist, not long after the publication of De clear-possibly influenced by the Renaissance alchemical association of Christ with the Egyp- Magnete. In it, he advises that “Beneath your tian god Thoth (in Greek, Hermes Trismegistus [Hermes the Thrice Greatest])-this symbol threshold, bury me a load-stone,/To draw in became conflated with two forms of the caduceus: the Askiepian caduceus, which is a clublike gallants, that wear spurres: the rest,/They’ll staff with a single serpent coiled about it (the true symbol of the medical profession), and the seeme to follow.” This portrait of Gilbert by badge of the Greek god-and herald for the gods-Hermes, originally a straight branch from an unknown artist is based on the engraving whose tip two curling, twisted twigs grew (in form, a dowser’s rod), which, through oriental- made in 1796 by R. Clamp (late 18th century), izing influences, was transformed into a snake-entwined branch. Hermes’ caduceus-the which itself is copy of a portrait of Gilbert American symbol of the medical profession-has no medical relevance whatsoever. In De (now lost) that is said to have been painted Magnefe, Gilbert illustrates (b) the method then used for making artificial (iron) lodestones: in 1591 by Cornelis Janssens (1593-1661, not “Get a smith to shape a mass [of iron] .. . on the anvil.. . Let the smith stand facing north very likely). Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), in [Septentrio, cf Fig 1], with back to the south [Auster, the Austral (Southern) Winds], so that as his History of the Worthies of England (1662), he hammers the red-hot iron it may have a motion of extension northward .. . have him keep writes of Gilbert that “such his loyality to the the same point of the iron looking north, and lay the finished bar aside in the same direction Queen that as if unwilling to survive, he when [the bar is] afloat [being passed through suitable pieces of cork, it] will move about dyed in the same year with her 1603. His the water, and, when the end is duly reached, will point north.” stature 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 With this lodestone and a compass, he was the book The Navigator’s Supply: by some invisible Loadstone; but the Mem- demonstrated that the behavior of a Containing many things of principall im- ory of this Doctor will never fall to the mariner’s compass could be explained portance belonging to Navigation, with Ground, which his incomparable book De by assuming that the earth is itself a the description and use of diverse instru- Magnete will support to Eternity.” large magnet. With this hypothesis ments framed chiefly for that purpose; but and his experiments, Gilbert created serving also for sundry other of cosmogra- the science of terrestrial magnetism. phy in generall: The particular instru- the earth) (Fig 5). This book was the On his death, Gilbert’s lessers tried to ments are specified on the next page (Lon- first important work in physical sci- place their escutcheon on his accom- don, 1597). In it, he describes in clear ence to be published in England and plishments. He was fortunate-a fel- technical prose geographic terms (me- can be regarded as the beginning of low physician preserved his honor. ridian, equator, latitude, longitude, the modern science of electricity. William Barlow (ca 1540-1625) en- etc), the use of the compass, and the Gilbert, like Cardano, makes a very tered holy orders in 1573 and had a use of early forms of the quadrant strong distinction between magne- brilliant ministerial career-when he and the sextant. Barlow’s second book tism and the “amber effect.” When he died he was Archdeacon of Salisbury. was Magneticall advertisements: or, found that a large number of sub- The numerous ecclesiastical favors Divers pertinent observations, and ap- stances when rubbed with silk or fur that he received throughout his life proved experiments concerning the nature will attract light objects, he gave them were due, in part, to his being the son and properties of the load-stone: Very the generic name “electrics.” He of a bishop and to his four sisters be- pleasant for knowledge, and most needfull coined this term from the Greek name ing married to bishops. He was liter- for practise, of travelling, or framing of for amber, ‘#{128}i’z’rpov,or electron. One ally deeply ensconced in the bosom of instruments fit for travellers both by sea of the principal pieces of apparatus the Church of England. Barlow’s two and land (London, 1616) (Fig 6). It is an that Gilbert used in his researches was scientific interests were complemen- important contribution to the devel- a large spherical lodestone, which he tary: navigation and magnetism. The opment of artificial magnets, for in it called a “terella”-a miniature earth. first product of his scientific pursuits he points out a basic difference be-

596 #{149}Radiology September 1991 unto their Patients to take pouder of a MAGNFTICALL A Lodestone inwardly, and the small Aduercifenlen:s: filings of iron mingled in some BREIFE DIS. plaister outwardly: supposing that OR COVERY OF THE herein the magneticall drawing D1VE7S PET17Es(j should do great wonders.” Gilbert obferuations, and approued ex IDLE ANIMAD.VEL. attributes whatever medicinal effect perimenic c.a1cer*mt&ntwe4e..po. SIONC OF M4I/fi 11LET this remedy has to the poultice which

pemcsoftheLoad1lonc: DoLonnPHz$zcEL ypon “heal[s] . . . the ruptured tissues by aTi c#{252}k4, Verj p1eaJt for nmaIeIge, .v.dmofi excication [drying out].” The only necdtull for pra#{226}ifc,of trauelling, or fra- concrete evidence that Barlow offers wig of lofirumcots & for Traudks Magnecicall Muercifements. to establish his right to precedence is boibbyscaand Laid. a letter from Gilbert to Barlow (in-

Ac,. s;.a6. - cluded in the book!) that contains this NsJe.fswMxJi*.urss.fs’mf.rs.IwsI J hw&#{224},riu.aud:ku.ws S.. passage: “you [Barlow] have shewed f.r.qp.ie4,m.d:S.Mi.fikrS.Sirms.a,thwthv, me [Gilbert] more; and brought more a dmo light than any man hath done.” The Oxford antiquarian and historian An- thony a Wood (1632-1695) says that Barlow was “accounted superior, or at least equal, to that doctor [Gilbert] for a happy finder out of many rare and magnetical secrets.” Unfortunately for Barlow, Wood’s support was posthu- 0 N DO N, DO N L L o s mous, and it was said of Wood “ that Printd 5yEdGr#{216}uforT PriMed by tIwm’J &ifr for r*.eh,, Swi.w, and he’d never spake well of any man.” sgldarbisthopioPm.bCburCb-yadr ao(ivaPa sbetipcftbc8uIlbea.i. i6i6. . ymid. iOsS However, his chief detractor was im- mediate; his nemesis-the wrongdoer a. b. he alludes to in Magneticall Advertise- 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- ments ‘ dedication-the physician tism. (a) In his book Magneticall advertisements, he notes the difference in the magnetic proper- Mark Ridley (1560-1624). ties of iron and steel; by mistranslating from the Latin text of De Magnete the word ‘electric” Barlow’s life was the antithesis of as “electricall,” he coined a new word; through his dedication of the book to a courtier, whom Ridley’s. The cleric led a sedentary he compares to a magnet because the courtier is of “so pleasing a carriage toward evene man, life, never venturing out onto the sea as causeth al good men which know [him] to love [him] by force of a natural sympathy,” he the charting and navigation of which 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 became his true life’s work. The of the twinned snakes (left) wears a crown on its head. This identifies it as a basilisk-a crea- healer began his medical career as ture whose breath was so foul that inhaling one puff of it meant death. The only method of physician to the English merchants killing a basilisk was to make it see its own hideous reflection. Is Barlow making an indirect resident in Muscovy (Moscow). Then reference to M(arke) Ridley with this distorted form of a physician’s crest-identifying him he was appointed the chief physician with the basilisk? Are we to interpret the escutcheon as Barlow’s intent of vanquishing Ridley of the tsar, Theodore (1584-1598). His 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 medical skills and personal charm to Ridley’s charges, A Brief discovery of the idle animadversions of Marke Ridley, contains a quote- must have been considerable, for not “moneat Cornicula risum, Furtinis nudata celoribus,” or, “let the Horned One beware of ridi- only did he survive the tsar’s death cule, for the theft which was hidden is exposed”-which leaves one in no doubt of his percep- but he also returned to England in tion of Ridley at the time of its publication. 1598 with many compliments from the new tsar, Boris Fedorovich Go- dunov (1552-1605). He settled in prac- tween steel and iron: “steele is farre [magnetism] .. . above the space of tice in London, where he achieved better than yron, and receiveth a farre twenty years ere Doctor Gilberts book professional renown. In 1613, Ridley stronger touch [magnetization]... saw light.” The degree of truth in this published a book that greatly alarmed The purer the steele, so much the bet- claim will never be known. He never Barlow: A Short treatise of magneticall ter. . .“ Barlow’s impetus for publish- challenged Gilbert’s priority while De bodies and motions (London, 1613) (Fig ing this book appears to have been a Magnete’s author lived, and with the 7). It is a practical review and an am- mixture of anxiety, jealousy, and exception of the description of the plification of the magnetic experi- pride. In the book’s dedicatory pas- differences in the properties of steel ments in Gilbert’s book written in an sages he alludes to early drafts of the and iron, all of the topics that Barlow articulate and straightforward prose book having been “either mislaied or discusses in his book-how to magne- style. Barlow published Magneticall embeseled” and that as a conse- tize needles, cap magnets, cement advertisements-and his thinly veiled quence he has “met with many por- (join) loadstones, and use the com- charge of plagiarism by Ridley-3 traitures of [his] Magneticall imple- pass-form a subset of those dealt years after the appearance of Ridley’s ments.. . in print in another mans with in Gilbert’s book. For example, book. The return volley came in the name.” He goes on to list those men Barlow singles out for censure only form of Magneticall animadversions who urged him to publish his work, one magnetic medical cure-the one (criticisms) upon certaine magneticall naming among them Gilbert. Indeed, that Gilbert criticizes in his book. Bar- advertisements from W. Barlow (Lon- he states that he “may be bold to chal- low deplores the”.. . great error of don, 1617), in which Ridley accuses lenge a right, as having endevoured those Phisitions and Surgeons, which Barlow of plagiarizing all that appears to get some insight in this argument to remedy ruptures, doe prescribe in his book from De Magnete and from

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}597 Ridley’s own work. The reply was A Brief discovery of the idle animadversions ofMarke Ridley (Fig 6) (London, 1618)-a 13-page salvo in which Bar- low shrieks out his charge against Ridley, points out all that he perceives to be in error in Ridley’s book, lists his own unique discoveries on the nature of magnetism (unlisted are the dif- ferent magnetic properties of steel and iron), slyly accuses Ridley of her- esy (like Gilbert, Ridley was a Coper- nican, something which the religious Barlow was definitely not: “[Gilbert’s] sixt Booke, entreating of the motion of the earth, I thinke there is no man living farther from beleeving it, than my selfe . . .“), and questions Ridley’s title of chief physician to the tsar! In Barlow’s words, “except this Ridley, has ploughed with my Heifor, hee had not knowne my Riddle [a sieve to separate chaff from grain].” Who was telling the truth? Gilbert, the one person who could have an- a. b. swered this question, had died 12 Figure 7. Dr Mark Ridley appears to have been a very good self-promoter. The title page of years before the beginning of this ar- his book A Short treatise of magneticall bodies and motions (a) declares him to be a “Doctor in phi- gument. Both men lay claim to frater- sicke and Phiosophie Lately Physition to the Emperour of Russia, and one of eight principals nizing with “Doctor Gilbert, our or Elects of the Colledge of Physitions in London.” In case the book’s readers missed the mes- friend and Collegiat” (a phrase from 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 Ridley’s book). The difference in the Cambridge (Cantabrigiensis), Doctor (Archiatrus) to the Russian Emperor.” His coat of arms is spirit in which the two authors wrote emblazoned in the shield, which itself is surrounded by scientific instruments and symbols of their books makes one hope that Rid- learning. Below this imposing composition are inscribed the words “Missus ab Elisa Ruthenis ley was telling the truth. Whereas quinque per annos/Anglis ni desis (de sis?) te vocat illa domum/Tute matematicis clams mag- Barlow marshalls the powers of netica calles/Promas[?] laudes doctus ubique capis.” (“Sent by Elizabeth to the Russians for heaven into his ranks-”To the 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 Reader: This booke was written by a receive them.”) Clearly, Ridley had much in common with Cardan (cf Fig 3). Bishops sonne,/And by affinitie to many Bishops kinne:fHimself a godly Pastour, prayse hath wonne,/In being diligent to conquer sinne”-(from the Among De Magnete’s readers in Italy even more by true and conclu- introductory verses to Navigator’s Sup- were Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), sive demonstrations. But this ply), Ridley advises his readers that Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), and need not diminish the glory of “when [they] readest this booke, that Gilbert’s rival Giambattista Della the first observer... [theyl should provide [themselves] of Porta (1535-1615) (Fig 8). The former (Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning such. . . Magnets as I have described two incorporated its contents into the Two Chief World Systems-Ptolemaic as also of needles, wiers and their arguments in support of the he- & Copernican) (Florence, 1630). Porta waights of iron and steel. . . then liocentric model of the solar system called Gilbert a “barbarous English-

[they] mayest reade and practice the that had been proposed by Nicolaus man.. . who took the whole seventh operations and demonstration in this Copernicus (1473-1543): book of my Magiae Naturalis Libri XX booke.” Who won the argument? If Simplicio:Then you are one of those [Natural magick in 20 books] [Naples, one assigns significance to the eti- people who adhere to the 1558] and split it into many books, quette of introductions, a clue is magnetic philosophy of making some changes; . . . the mate- found in these lines from Ben Jon- William Gilbert?... rial which he adds on his own ac- son’s comedy The Magnetic Lady Salviati:I have the highest praise, ad- count is false, perverse and melan- (1632), wherein the heroine-”Lady miration, and envy for the choly; and towards the end he arrives Lodestone”-”Draws and draws unto author, who framed such a at the mad idea that the earth is in you guests of all sorts,/The courtiers, stupendous concept regarding motion.” Bruno was burnt at the stake and the soldiers, and the scholars,/ an object which innumerable in Italy for promoting the Copernican The travelers, physicians and di- men of splendid intellect had system. Galileo was condemned by vines,/As Doctor Ridley wrote, and handled without paying any the Inquisition for his belief in the

Doctor Barlowe.” attention to it.. . I might have heliocentric system and was under Gilbert’s book was widely dissemi- wished for in Gilbert would be house arrest until his death. Porta was nated (it reached Italy in only 2 a little more of the mathemati- examined by the Inquisition, and in years), and with its publication a great cian.. . I do not doubt that in 1592 all further publication of his period of scientific research and in- the course of time this new works was prohibited. This ban was quiry on the nature of electrostatics science will be improved with not lifted until 1598. and magnetism began-ominously. still further observations, and The treatment of Gilbert’s fellow

598 #{149}Radiology September 1991 1647)-a life of Epicurus-is a minor mystery in the history of science. Epi- curus taught that in the beginning there 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 and Creation in such a theory. Neverthe- less, Gassendi managed it and thus made heretical atomism fashionable. By teaching that “the human soul is immaterial” and that “the Creator is the first cause of things but, once the moment of Creation was over, He re- moved Himself from active control of natural phenomena,” he clothed at- omism in the vestments of religious orthodoxy. Science’s claim for domin- ion over the world was advanced, and its champion in England was the one-time Paracelsian, and physician, Walter Charleton (1620-1707). The extreme swings of fortune in Walter Charleton’s medical and scien- b. tific careers find echoes in the histori- Figure 8. (a) Giambattista Della Porta (bottom center)-autodidact, playwright, and writer of cal events of the transitional period books on philosophy, geometry, optics, military architecture, cryptography, mathematics, me- into which he was born. To under- teorology, physiognomy, and chemistry. His book Magiae Naturalis Libri XX (Natural magick stand the vast alterations that Charle- 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 in ton’s perception of science suffered, Italian, seven in French, two in German, two in English, and, possibly, one in Spanish and an- we must first consider another physi- other in Arabic. The frontispiece (a) and title page (b)-engraved by Richard Gaywood (ca cian and chemist of his time: the Bel- 1650-1680)-of the English translation of the book, which was printed in London in 1658 (al- gian, Johannes Baptista Van Helmont most 100 years after the original publication date of the book!), give evidence to the complex (1579-1644). He was a Paracelcian and nature of this man. They accommodate both the fantastic (alchemy) and the practical (Of Tem- a brethren of the Ancient Mystical pering Steel). The seventh chapter of Natural Magick deals with the “Load-stone.” Much in that chapter is comparable to Gilbert’s statements in De Magnete, hence his hostility toward Gilbert. Order of the Rosy Cross-a Rosicru- Porta was a curious, and contrary, man. He includes in this book chapters on perfumes and cian. This order was an offshoot of cosmetics, and then goes on to describe how to turn women’s faces red, green, or pimply. His Paracelcian teachings and arose in dedication to experiment, and his contemplation of the natural world, freed him from many Germany in the very early 17th cen- false perceptions and brought him to the verge of greatness, but in the end he was over- tury. Helmont was most interested in whelmed by the lure of the occult and the fabulous. one aspect of Rosicrucian teachings: the “Unguentum Armarium,” or weapon salve. Some of the ingredi- savants in France was no better than punishment was death-a sentence ents of this salve were human blood, that in Italy. In 1634, the celebrated meted out to the Huguenot scholar, human fat, dried Egyptian mummy, philosopher and mathematician Ren#{233} philosopher, mathematician, and ped- armemac, oil of roses, and linseed oil. Descartes (1596-1650, inventor of ana- agogue Pierre de La Ram#{233}e(Peter In short, it contained everything but lytic geometry) (Fig 9) was ready to Ramus, 1515-1572). His attacks on lodestone! When a person was publish his treatise Le Monde, ou Trait#{233} Aristotelian (non-atomistic) logic led wounded by a weapon-for example, de la Lumi#{232}rewhen the news came to to his being shot, stabbed, thrown by an arrow-this salve was applied him of Galileo’s persecution. He de- from a window, dragged by his heels to the weapon-in our example, the cided to suppress his quasi-atomistic to the Seine, decapitated, and thrown blood-covered arrowhead-and not (corpuscular) physical theories into the river during the St Bartho- to the wound. The wound itself was (amongst them the first mechanical lomew’s Day Massacre (August 26, cleaned and dressed with clean lint. theory of magnetism) until he had 1572). Then “the blood effused doth send secured the patronage of Cardinal History shows that the Catholic out subtle streams to its fount [the Richelieu (1585-1642), chief minister Church in the 17th century did not body],” and with these streams, or of King Louis XIII of France (1601- give up its intellectual primacy with- “Magnetic Nuntii,” are carried “the 1643). Le Monde was not published in out a fight. And yet, the main impetus Balsamick [healing] Emanations of the its entirety until after Descartes’ for objective scientific research was Sympathetic Unguent or Powder.” death. In fact, in France, through the provided by the teachings of a French Helmont’s troubles began when he first half of the 17th century, it was a priest, Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) published a treatise on the weapon crime to publish any thesis that dis- (Fig 10), which rehabilitated the salve and the method for effecting agreed with the teachings of the atomic doctrines of the ancient sympathetic cures, De Magnetica Vul- Catholic Church (and Aristotle) with- Greeks. How he contrived to get ec- nerum Naturali et Legitima Curatione out the consent of the theological fac- clesiastical approval to publish De Vi- Contra (The magnetic cure of wounds) ulty of the University of Paris. The tae et Moribus Epicuri Libri Octo (Lyons, (Paris, 1621). The General Inquisition

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}599 b. 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 believe in 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 manner of 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 in he gave the Greek name xaoc (chaos) delights to allect [draw in] strawes, 1625. A year later, it was impounded. or gas. chaffe, and other festucous bodies, by In 1627 Helmont asserted his inno- The complex mixture of advanced an attraction, we confesse, obscure cence and submission to the Church. science and medicine, cosmology, al- and weake enough, yet sufficiently He acknowledged his errors again in chemy, and metaphysics that is Hel- manifest and strong to attest an Elec- 1630. Condemned in 1633-1634 for mont’s healing doctrine is couched in tricity, or attractive signature: for mar- adhering to the “ monstrous super- Hermetic prose. Its translation from ned to the mumie of our bodies, it stitions” of the school of Paracelsus, Latin into English was accomplished appears superior to the humane he was placed under house arrest un- by Walter Charleton (Fig 11). His Magnet.” Charleton appears to be the til 1636. Church proceedings against humble origins required him to enter coiner of the word “electricity.” Note him were not lifted until 1642, 2 years a profession-his choice was medi- that he uses it in the context of an before his death. In 1646 he received cine. Charleton’s genius was quickly electrostatic charge causing two bod- an official religious rehabilitation, and recognized, and, through the favor of ies to move together, instead of to permission was given for De Magnet- King Charles II of England (1630- denote a moving line of charge (a cur- ica to be reprinted. 1685), he was awarded the degree of rent). Helmont was not the charlatan that Doctor of Physick in 1643, at the A confirmed Helmontian, Charle- his dabbling in alchemy would lead young age of 23. Shortly afterward he ton experimented with magnetic one to believe. Amongst his achieve- was made Physician-in-Ordinary to cures. Their failure, and his growing ments in medicine are the demonstra- the King. When Oliver Cromwell’s awareness of the new atomic doc- tion that acid is the digestive agent in (1599-1658) Roundheads overthrew trine, ensured that he would turn the stomach, that the rhythmic move- the monarchy, Charleton moved to away from Helmont and toward Gas- ment of the pylorus exerts a directing London. There, he was unable to ob- sendi. In 1654 his most important action on digestion, and (most impor- tain admission to the College of Phy- work on atomic natural philosophy tant) that diseases have a discrete and sicians until 1676 due, it is said, to the appeared, Physiologia Epicuro-Gas- unique nature. Amongst his achieve- envy and resentment that his precoc- sendo-Charlotiana (London, 1654) (Fig ments in chemistry are improved ity generated-a more likely cause 11). Through it, the mechanical phi- chemical medicines, the proof that was his unrepentant royalism. During losophy of atomism was disseminated metals reduced by acid are recover- the interregnum Charleton turned to in England, influencing the country’s able, and the discovery of “specific writing. His first work was a transla- leading scientists-among them Isaac smoke.” Helmont burned solids and tion and expansion of Helmont’s oeu- Newton (1642-1727). Charleton en- fluids and applied chemical analysis vre (including De Magnetica), which joyed his greatest prosperity and in- to the smoke that resulted. He found he titled A Ternary of Paradoxes (Lon- fluence in the years following the res- its nature to be different from air and don, 1650) (Fig 11). There, while con- toration of the monarchy in 1660. He water vapor and to be specific to its sidering the healing powers of amber, was again appointed physician to the source material. This “specific smoke” he states that “the phansy of Amber king, was made a member of the

600 #{149}Radiology September 1991 medicines, and talismans that were questionable as they are described in prevalent at that time. Browne was Pictures.” Over 200 separate topics singularly suited for that task. While are treated in the 200 leaves of the he was in his twenties, he traveled book. The amount of writing in it de- throughout Italy, France, and Ger- voted to any topic is related to the many, studying many subjects, learn- importance that Browne assigned to ing several languages (Greek, Latin, that topic. Thus, in mere paragraphs French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, He- he deals with the devil’s cloven hoof brew, Danish, and Portugese!), and and why dogs can search out a Jew in receiving his MD in Leiden in 1633. the dark; consumes a page or so to When he returned to England, he refute the belief that a badger’s right practiced for 4 years with an estab- legs are shortened so that he can run lished doctor in Oxford in order to comfortably along a hillside (what satisfy English regulations. He took would happen if he ran across the his MD in Oxford in 1637. During this same ground in the opposite direction period, and throughout his life, he is not sufficient grounds to dismiss read extensively on travel, philoso- this “fact”); and consigns more than a phy, medicine, and science. He also dozen pages to a consideration of a conducted many experiments in central problem to the concept of mat- physics, electricity, biology, coagula- ter: magnetism. tion, and comparative anatomy. All Scrutiny of the lodestone occurs in Figure 10. Pierre Gassendi, defender of at- that was remarkable that he learned the second book of Pseudodoxia. omism. This is a reproduction of the en- or read in any book, he set down in Browne begins on a materialistic note: graved portrait executed by Jacques Lubin notebooks. These were to be his intel- “And first we conceive the earth to be (1637-1695?), which was published by lectual quarry until his death. a Magneticall body . . . exciting and Charles Perrault (1628-1703, critic and author Browne’s fame results from three impregnating magneticall bodyes of the Mother Goose fairy tales) in his book Les Hommes Illustres qui ont Paru en France books that he wrote: Religio Medici (A within its surface or without it, and Pendant ce Ci#{232}cle(Paris, 1696). Gassendi’s physician’s religion) (London, 1643), performing in a secret and invisible writings touched all fields of knowledge: Pseudodoxia Epidemica (Enquiries into way what we evidently behold ef- metaphysics, mathematics, astronomy, phys- vulgar and common errors) (London, fected by the Loadstone.” Then, he ics, and medicine. A chronic disease of the 1646), and Hidriotaphia, or, Urne-buriall goes on to describe the two contem- chest undermined his health. A few days be- (London, 1658). The first book is the porary theories of the cause of mag- fore his death, he was bled nine times in a single day in an effort to break his intermit- story of Browne’s resolution of “the netism: the Epicurean (the stream of tent fever and to relieve the congestion in his divided and distinguished worlds atoms) and the Cartesian (the corpus- chest. Though weak and protesting that he that he inhabited.” In it, he deals with cular theory; see Fig 9). He doesn’t could not withstand another bleeding, he a doctor’s relation to his God and to commit himself to either theory, but submitted to the decision of the best physi- the secular world of his profession. It he attempts to test some of the better- cians in Paris and allowed himself to be bled was read in England and, in transla- known facts associated with magne- four more times. He died on October 24, 1655. tion, everywhere in Europe. Few tism by observing the behavior of a books in any age have caused such a simple magnetized needle compass (a commotion. The last book is a consid- magnetized needle piercing a cork eration of the discovery of some sup- that is suspended in a bowl of water), Royal Society, and achieved fame as a posed Roman (really Saxon) burial magnetization of iron by heating, the prolific and brilliant author. However, urns near Norwich, England. Portions attraction of unlike magnetic poles, by the 1690s the scientific beliefs and of this text are considered to be some and so on. He arrives at several false methods that had preceded his Phys- of the greatest prose in the English conclusions-for example, “the iologia were obsolescent. His medical language. The second book is the Northern pole of the Loadstone at- practice declined. Charleton spent the longest, most difficult to read, and tracteth a greater weight then the last years of his life in poverty, un- most important. It is a critique-a re- Southerne on this side of the done in part by the scientific ideas evaluation-of the popular ideas of Equator”-due in part to the primi- that he had helped popularize. his time. Browne did not mean for tive nature of the experiments he was The scholars of the 17th century- this book to be the final arbiter on able to perform. However, he also Bruno, Galileo, Della Porta, Voltaire, these ideas, but rather, that it should makes some shrewd observations: Gassendi, Charleton, Van Helmont, clear the grounds for those who were “there may be some fraud in the and many more-debated and wrote to follow him and who would “test weighing of precious commodities... lengthy refutations of each other’s the things [ideas] themselves: opin- by placing a powerful Loadstone work and theories. They were prepar- ions [on our conceptions] are free; above or below [the scale], according ing the intellectual climate of Europe and open it is for any to think or de- as we intend to depresse or elevate for the coming age of Enlightenment clare the contrary... [we] shall only one extream” and “[the Loadstonej through public, and vociferous, argu- take notice of such, whose experi- may serve as a tryall of good Steel... ment. It was in a more gentle spirit mental and judicious knowledge shall taking up a greater masse of that that the English physician Thomas solemnly look upon it.. . ready to be which is most pure.. . may also de- Browne (1605-1682) (Fig 12)-a shy swallowed [by] any worthy enlarger.” cide the conversion of wood into Iron, and retiring man, always on the Pseudodoxia comprises seven sections, as is pretended. . . and the commone fringe of the scientific world, and a or books. The first is devoted to the conversion of Iron into Copper.” self-defined “enquirer after truth”- causes of error, while the others en- Browne then goes on to outline the began the first systematic and deliber- compass topics as varied as “mineral “sundry. . . Naturall, Historicall, Med- ate onslaught on the magnetic salves, and Vegetable bodies” and “things icall [and], Magicall . . . common opin-

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}601 Figure 11. (a) This portrait of Walter Charleton (frontispiece for Immortality of the r Human Soul [London, 1657]) at age 37 was created 2 years before he published the first I ernary ot araclOxes English textbook on physiology, Natural His- OF THE tory ofNutrition, Life and Voluntary Motion e94agne#{252}cCure (London, 1659). By that age, he had already of Wounds. translated the works of the Paracelcian Hel- ,7’.(tivit.y of Tartar in IVine. mont into English (b) (note the alchemical Image of ifod in Man. frontispiece: The light of the sun [Lumen de Luminel ignites, through the agency of a burning, or magnifying, glass, some material from which ever-moving (In Termino Concur- susl “specific smoke” [Helmont’s x#{225}oc,or gas] 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 the physical toll that this uncompromising man paid for his staunch Royalism-a toll that did not extend to his personal conduct, as the inscription below the engraving demon- strates: H#{225}phffams 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;/At pulcriorem dat libris Autor suis,/Hic Corpus, a. b. Illis ipsa Mens depingitur/Imo Universi Mens & Ipsius simul/In effigy & in this book/There is a beautiful image of Dr. Charleton, created PHYSIOLOGIA by a sculptor’s hand;/But the author renders an even more beautiful picture in this book,/ EpicuroGallendo-Charkoniana: OFt Here his body, and his very mind is painted/ Nay, both his mind & that of the universe,” A FABRICIC saw out the end of his life as the impover- OF ished librarian of the Royal College of Physi- cians. His contemporary, Anthony a Wood, SCIENCE NATURAL described him in his later years as “a learned Upon theHypothefis of and an unhappy man, aged grave, yet too much given to romances [speculation].” ATOMS5 F.usi#{252}& ) (EPICVLVS, Rchcd b,.l?ET&VS GASSENDVS, Mgaessccd (IY4L,TE& CH4&LE(ON, ions, and received . . . relations” on Dr. in Medicine, and Pbyflcian to the late the loadstone. He confirms, or dis- CHARLES, Monarch of Grcat-&’is#{243}. proves, by experiment those that he can: Loadstone filings retain their The FiRST PART. magnetism, garlic does not destroy a loadstone; diamonds do not impede FeNIS. z.deAimmCa a. #{149}bf; ff’’PrI’Ij’n’. C.,rq... icarmPaiw, i#a.#{252}i.wi4v, the effect of loadstones, loadstones do a, t #{225}f.I.ifub ..,. not attract pure “glasse,” and so on. .*f.. I,e Those that are dubious and cannot be confirmed by means of experiment he LONDO N, Printedby 7’h.: ‘(ti,coah, for 7h.a: Hwh, and does not dispute but defers as to their are tobefoldaehhfhopinRsilil.flrcer, veracity to the testimony of men a.., thPkt,aa of C.,eas.Gsr4.. whom he considers to be reliable wit- I ‘54. nesses. Among these are that the c. d. ashes of vegetables that grow over iron mines contract a magnetic qual- ity, the Magnes Carneus-a loadstone is placed under the pillow of an un- Although Browne cannot prove it that has the capacity to attract flesh, faithful wife she will not be able to absolutely-and therefore he does the existence of magnetic islands in remain in bed with her husband, and not commit himself-he suggests that the Indian Ocean, the levitated cult so on-he guts with withering sallies. the mechanisms by which “effective” statue of Arsinoe Philadelphos, and His response to the claim that “the magnetic salves operate lie not in the the magnetically suspended Tomb of body of man is magneticall, and being magnetic properties of its contents Mohammed. The absurd ones-that placed in a boate, the vessell will but in the medicinal effects of the 10 oz of loadstone to which 1 oz of never rest until the head respecteth mineral properties of those contents. iron has been added still weighs 10 the North” is that “if this be true, the The origin of such remedies as mag- oz, that there are loadstones that at- bodies of Christians doe lye unnatu- netic amulets that “draw out” gout,

tract only at night, that if a loadstone rally in their graves.. .“ headaches, and venereal diseases, he

602 #{149}Radiology September 1991 mometers on the basis of two points of change: one, the freezing point of water, and the other, unfortunately, the melting point of butter (he was probably from Normandy). The publi- cation of Traitt#{233}de l’Aiman was one more step in the transition of man’s perception of the world as a place controlled by philosophical principles to one governed by measurable, in- tangible, forces. The tangled skein of magnetism, electrostatics, medicine, chemistry, and the then infant science of physics was beginning to be unrav- elled into separate strands. In the 18th century, a passionate interest in electricity and magnetism enveloped all of Europe’s peoples, especially the French and the Ger- mans-fire in the form of sparks could be forced out of the human body. Man was surrounded by aston- ishing, invisible forces. Rubbed glass Figure 12. Thomas Browne, whose answer machines, which could produce a to the great error of his age-the obsequious constant source of electrical charge, acceptance of traditional accounts of things Figure 13. Allegorical frontispiece of the were invented (Fig 14). Contempo- as they were-was to write the book Pseudo- Traitt#{233}de l’Aiman byjoachim Dalenc#{233}.It rary demonstrations of the electricaV doxia Epidemica. This is a detail from a con- shows a mariner holding a rudder in one magnetic fluids in the body pro- temporary painting done by an unknown hand and a compass in the other, about to artist circa 1641-1650. The whole work shows board his ship. A goddess points with her left ceeded in this manner: An urchin was both Browne and his wife, Dorothy. To hand to a compass and with her right hand caught, suspended in mid-air by insu- Browne, “the three determinators of truth to the constellation Ursa Minor (the Little lating cords, and then electrified by (are) authority, sense, and reason.” In the Bear), the brightest star of which is Polaris contact with a rubbed glass machine. prefatory note of Pseudodoxia Epidemica he (the Pole, or North, Star). She holds in her Sparks would then be drawn from his says that existing errors in thinking must be left hand a sounding (depth) line. In front of nose and he would be made to attract removed before men will be ready to receive the mariner’s ship floats a boat-shaped vessel new knowledge. For that reason he had pre- containing a lodestone. On the left, a sus- small bits of paper and metal leaf (Fig pared a “large and copious List” of com- pended lodestone supports a series of keys 15). The first man to perform the elec- monly presumed truths. The task was very and weights, possibly a display of a lode- trifled boy experiment was also the difficult, as some of the subjects were ob- stone’s strength. On the ground, next to the first to demonstrate the transmission scure; he had to work alone-cut off from plinth, lies a series of mining tools (picks, of charge-the English electrician the universities and from London-and he shovels, etc), indicating the source of lode- Stephen Gray (1666-1736). Born to a could do it only in snatches of time, “as med- stones. ical vacations, and the fruitless importunity family of artisans, Gray, a shy and of Uroscopy would permit” him. self-effacing man, followed in his fa- ther’s footsteps and became a dyer. nomena could be summarized in the His omnivorous interest in the sci- 33 overwrought plates that form the ences was fed by self-education. In- consigns to man’s instinct for “the curious work Traitt#{233}de l’Aiman (Am- deed, he was not to devote himself hopeful enlargements of its [the load- sterdam, 1687) (Fig 13) by Joachim completely to science until a bad back stone’s] allowed attraction.” Browne Dalenc#{233}(ca 1640-1707). It is proof that made him unable to practice his trade. dismisses as nonsense a report of a in the nearly 100 years after the publi- Then, in 1711, he asked to be admit- young man who had swallowed a cation of Gilbert’s great book no ad- ted as a “poor brethren” (pensioner) knife and who was cured when the vancement had been made in the to Sutton’s Hospital (the London knife was attracted to a convenient study of magnetism. All that is known Charterhouse-an extant institution location by applying “a plaister made of Dalenc#{233}comes from archival mate- that provides schooling for boys who up with the powder of Loadstone” rial and correspondence. Besides the are “gentlemen by descent and in and then cut from his stomach. treatise on the magnet, he wrote two poverty” and a living for poor breth- All that Browne attests to in Pseudo- other important works: La Reconais- ren who were preferably “soldiers doxia is not correct. Much of what he sance des Temps, ou Calendrier et Ephe- that had borne arms by sea or land, sets down in it is not original-he merides du Lever et de Coucher de la Lune merchants decayed by piracy or ship- borrows extensively from Gilbert, et des Autres Plan#{232}tes,avec les Eclipses wreck, or servants in household to Gassendi, Descartes, and others. The pour l’Ann#{233}e(Paris, 1679-1684) (a set of the King or Queen’s Majesty”). He great merit in this work lies not in its astronomical tables on the daily rising was admitted in June 1719. There, he originality of thought but in its dem- and setting times of the moon and found a more than adequate number onstration that dogmatic assertions planets [ephemeris tables]) and Trait- of urchins on which to experiment. about phenomena will break down in tez des Barometres, Thermometres et No- He first tried the electrified boy exper- the face of experience. And so, at the tiometres ou Hygrometres (Amsterdam, iment in his chamber on April 8, 1730, end of the 17th century, what little 1688) (a book on meteorologic instru- although he did not describe it in the was known and could be quantified ments). In the latter work, he was the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal about magnets and magnetic phe- first to suggest the calibration of ther- Society until 1731. In Gray’s own

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}603 words, “a Boy between eight and Figure 14. The electrostatic engine was in- nine Years of Age. His weight, with vented in 1705 by Francis Hauksbee (1666- 1713), demonstrator and curator of experi- his Cloaths on, was forty-seven ments for the Royal Society of London. He Pounds ten Ounces. I suspended him was investigating the blue glow given off by in a horizontal Position . . . Upon the rubbed evacuated glass tubes. In reality, the [glass] Tube’s being rubbed, and held tubes were only partially evacuated, and the near his Feet . . . the Leaf-Brass was phenomenon he was observing we now call attracted to the Boy’s face with much ionization. To produce the glow, he mounted an evacuated glass globe on a spindle and Vigour . . .“ On Gray’s death, the rotated it with great speed while a woolen writer and critic Samuel Johnson cloth was pressed against it by a strong brass (1709-1784) co-wrote “Now, hoary spring. He discovered that this apparatus Sage, pursue thy happy flight,/With could produce a strong electric charge that swifter motion haste to purer light,! could be transferred to other objects by Where Bacon waits with Newton and means of a metal chain (wire) connected to fine metal points suspended just above the with Boyle!To hail thy genius, and glass globe’s surface. Such an instrument was applaud thy toil;” used by Benjamin Franklin for his own scien- By 1743 showmen were traveling tific investigations. Hauksbee was an experi- with their electrical machines to the mental genius but a scientific autodidact. He English New World Colonies, giving derived his theoretical principles from the people shocks for a small fee. In that president of the Royal Society, Isaac Newton. In turn, Newton relied on Hauksbee to test year, Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) his conjectures. At his request, Hauksbee (Fig 16) observed in Boston an electri- tried without much success to discover the fled boy exhibition by the itinerant law of magnetic attraction. Their collabora- electrician (and practicing male mid- tion, which continued until Hauksbee’s wife) Archibald Spencer (MD, ?-1760) death, enabled Newton to make extensions of Edinburgh, Scotland, lecturer on and revisions to his theories: “The power of gravity is of a different nature from the natural philosophy. The man was a power of magnetism . . . The power of mag- popular lecturer, who, Franklin wrote netism in one and the same body may be in- “was lately arrived from Scotland, creased and diminished; and is sometimes and showed me some electrical exper- far stronger, for the quantity of matter, than iments. These were imperfectly the power of gravity; and in receding from perform’d, as he was not very expert; the magnet decreases not as the square but almost as the cube of the distance, as nearly but being on a subject quite new to as I could judge from some rude observa- magnetic fluid that is uniformly dis- me, they equally surpris’d and tons” (Principia III, 6-he almost got it right). pleased me.” Franklin was in the pro- tributed throughout it. When an ob- cess of retiring from the printing ject is magnetized the fluid condenses trade. His business interests were in one of its extremities. That extrem- yielding him an income of #{163}1,000a It is to Franklin that we owe one of ity becomes positively magnetized year-equal to the salary of the royal the most (to this author) annoying while the donor region of the object governor of the province of Pennsyl- concepts in physics. The kind of becomes negatively magnetized. The vania. It is to be expected that this charge that accumulates on a glass degree to which an object can be restless man would seek an outlet for rod that has been rubbed with silk he magnetized depends on the force his intellectual energies. Spencer’s named “positive.” That which accu- necessary to start the fluid moving lecture, although flawed by Boston’s mulates on amber that has been within it. Whether it remains so is in- humidity, roused Franklin’s interest rubbed with fur he named “nega- dicative of how easy it is for the mag- in electrical and magnetic phenom- tive.” He defined the sense of current netic fluid to flow on its own back to ena. He acquired some simple equip- as positive charge moving from a pos- the negative magnetic pole. An elec- ment from Europe and began their itively charged battery electrode to a trical shock (current) passing through study. In 1744, Spencer performed his negatively charged electrode. We an object renders it a magnet because lecture-demonstration in Philadel- now know that when a glass rod is it puts the object’s magnetic fluid in phia. At some time after that, Franklin rubbed with silk some of the rod’s motion. At the same moment that bought Spencer’s equipment, and his mobile electrons (negative charge) are solid connections were being estab- research began in earnest (Spencer taken up by the silk, “charging” it lished between electricity and magne- took holy orders and spent the rest of positively, and that an amber rod tism-”[a tradesman in Wakefield] his life as minister to All Hallows Par- rubbed with fur has some of the fur’s having put up a great number of

ish, Anne Arundel County, Mary- mobile electrons transferred to it, knives and forks in a large box . . . in a

land). Within a few years he had “charging” it negatively. But the true large room. . . a sudden storm of

teased out the basic principles of elec- nature of current is electron flow. Be- thunder, lightening.. . the Box split trostatics (Fig 17). Much of present cause of Franklin, current flows in the many knives and forks melted... electrical terminology originates with opposite sense to that of the particles emptying the box upon a Counter

Franklin: charge, discharge, con- that carry it. where some Nails lay. .. the knives,

denser, electrical shock, electrician, Magnetism is not a research area in that lay upon the Nails.. . took up positive, negative, plus, and minus. which Franklin distinguished himself. the Nails” (Philosophical Transactions of As a graphic expression to describe He tried to describe magnetism in the Royal Society for 1 735)-Franklin the shock produced by combining a terms of a magnetic fluid the proper- turns around and says “As to the number of Leyden jars (condensers or ties of which were analogous to those magnetism, which seems produced by capacitors), he took over the military of his electrical fluid (charge). Thus, electricity, my real opinion is, that term “battery.” according to him, all matter contains a these two powers of nature have no

604 #{149}Radiology September 1991 separate works of scriptural explana- tion, scientific education (he once considered a career in medicine), and political morality-he used to lead a campaign that he began in 1721 for inoculation against smallpox. Popular sentiment was so high against this procedure that on one occasion a (dud) grenade was thrown into b. Mather’s house (the note attached Figure 15. The electrified boy was a dra- read “Cotton Mather, you Dog; Dam matic, and popular, demonstration of electri- you; I’l enoculate you with this, with cal fluids. In a, we see the electrician Abb#{233} a pox on you”). Franklin joined the Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-1770) performing popular attack on Mather, lampoon- it for the ladies of the French court in the ing him in his brother’s paper The mid-1740s. He holds a rubbed glass tube over the boy’s head, which induces in the boy a New England Courant. Mather’s father, distribution of charge. A woman raises her Increase Mather, expressed his fami- finger to the boy’s nose and draws a spark ly’s opinion of Franklin’s writing: “I from it. The boy’s hands attract bits of paper cannot but pity poor Franklin, who, from the small table in front of him. Nollet tho’ but a young Man it may be made his living from the construction and speedily he must appear before the sale of scientific apparatus, and his “cour de physique” was a set of carefully orchestrated Judgement Seat of God, and what science demonstrations performed for answer will he give for printing wealthy and enthusiastic auditors. His most things so vile and abominable?” In illustrious audience was the king of France, 1736, one of Franklin’s sons-his be- Louis XV (1710-1774), and the dauphin and loved Francis- died of smallpox at dauphine of France, the future Louis XVI and the age of 4 because he had not been Marie Antoinette. It is said that to demon- strate to them the transmission of static inoculated. Franklin would later sor- charge (he was the dauphin’s preceptor), he rowfully acknowledge his youthful affinity with each other, and that the made a line of several hundred Cartusian folly: “I long regretted bitterly, and apparent production of magnetism is monks hold hands. Then, the last monk in still regret that I had not given it to purely accidental.” the line was handed a metal pole driven into him by inoculation. This I mention for The variety of medical matters that the ground, while the first touched a charged the sake of parents who omit that op- electrostatic machine. All of the monks Franklin took an interest in makes leaped simultaneously into the air. The king eration, on the supposition that they one gasp. Possibly inspired by reports was most amused. Nollet disagreed strongly should never forgive themselves if a of new therapies based on placing the with Franklin’s theories on the nature of elec- child died under it; my example ill in a tub of water containing an tricity. Although wrong in his challenge, showing that the regret may be the electric eel, he experimented with through the prodding of his objections elec- same either way, and that, therefore, trostatic theory was refined. This illustration electric shocks as a cure for paralysis: the safer should be chosen.” comes from Nollet’s treatise on his electrical “I sent the united shock . . . through His medical interests gave Franklin experiments, Essai sur l’#{233}lectricit#{233}des corps the affected limb or limbs . . . the next (Paris, 1746). (b) An illustration from the book an entr#{233}eto some of his most devoted morning the patients usually related of the German astronomer and mathemati- paladins: the learned physicians of his

. . . a prickling sensation . . . The limbs cian Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750), day. They were to serve Franklin well Neu-entdeckte Phaenomena (Neuremberg, . . . seemed to receive strength . . . I do during his life. One notorious mci- 1744), which shows his version of the electri- not remember that I ever saw any dent comes to mind. The standard fled boy demonstration. This book was in- amendment after the fifth day... [the strumental in creating the popular interest in defense in his time against lightning patients] became discouraged, went electrical phenomena that spread throughout was the ringing of bells. Now, the in- home, and in a short time relapsed.” Germany in the mid-1740s. The son of a mer- cineration of bellringers by lightning He appears to be the first man to out- chant who made a hobby of physics, Doppel- was a much-noted phenomenon. line (at least in writing) the concept of mayr devoted his life to lecturing (he was a Franklin advocated replacing bell- professor of mathematics), writing, astronom- a craft-related disease: lead poisoning. ringers by spiked, or pointed, light- ical and meteorological observation, and When his sister contracted breast can- physical experimentation. He died of a severe ning rods (an invention of his) placed cer, Franklin compiled a list of the electrical shock that he received while experi- on building towers. English savants then-known therapies for it. He made menting with the just-invented condenser favored knobbed, or blunt, ones. At the observation that colds could be (capacitor). the time of this disagreement the dis- spread by contagion but not through obedient New World Colonies, which cold itself. Considering the breadth of Franklin represented, were in full rev- his endeavors, is it any wonder that olution, and the shape of lightning he had to invent bifocals so that he fluential figure, as Mather, the first rods became a matter of politics. In could work with greater efficiency? man from the New World Colonies to 1778, King George III of England In one area of medicine Franklin be elected a member of the Royal So- (1738-1820) instructed the president truly erred, and this had tragic conse- ciety of London (1713), was one of the of the Royal Society, the eminent mili- quences for him. Cotton Mather best-informed men in the colonies. tary doctor John Pringle (1707- (1663-1728)-author, Bostonian Con- Franklin attributed his own penchant 1782)-coiner of the words “septic” gregational minister, and American for practical schemes to notions de- and “antiseptic”-that henceforth Puritan-was to most of his contem- rived from Mather’s essays. Whatever lightning rods would end in knobs. poraries the embodiment of outdated energies Mather could spare from Pringle, a good friend of Franklin, ideology. To Franklin, he was an in- producing those writings-over 450 replied that “the prerogatives of the

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}605 President of the Royal Society do not extend to altering the laws of nature,” and forthwith resigned (or so goes the tale, which may have been concocted by the French). Franklin’s involvement in medical research and his investigations of magnetism can be portrayed as pay- ing the way for one of the great bloodbaths of history-the French Revolution. Franz Anton Mesmer (Fig 18) was born in 1734 in Germany. In his 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, De Planetarium Influx, extends to paracel- sian medicine the gravitational theory of Isaac Newton! For the next 8 years, Mesmer practiced medicine in Vi- enna, spending his spare time experi- a. b. menting in physics and practicing on Figure 16. Benjamin Franklin, the intellectual “beau ideal” of his time, achieved world re- the glass harmonica (a musical instru- nown at age 45 with his experiments on electrical phenomena. A brilliant scientist and experi- ment perfected by Franklin). He was mentalist, Franklin was thought by his contemporaries to be the “Father of Electricity” (many known for his modesty, lack of ambi- 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 tion, and kindness. A recipient of that literary creations-Richard Saunders, a bumbling old savant, poor, saddled with a shrewish beneficence was the young Wolfgang wife, given to making pious observations and to ogling pretty girls-and gave him a home in Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). At the Poor Richard’s Almanac (Philadelphia, 1732). Succeeding generations have confused Franklin age of 12, Mozart was commissioned with his creation. (b) Popular images of Franklin, such as this mezzotint by Edward Fisher by Emperor Joseph II of Austria (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 (1741-1790) to write an opera. The grounded and the other connected to a form of lightning rod, and they would ring during a court intrigues of the time sabotaged lightning discharge. this commission. To make amends, Mesmer ordered from Mozart an op- era for himself. This work, Bastien et Bastienne-Mozart’s first opera-made these cures was the power of sugges- Maria Theresa. Maria had been blind its debut in September of 1768 in Mes- tion, Mesmer soon found that he since the age of 3. It is certain from mer’s private theater. Mozart later could obtain cures with such non- the records of the time that her blind- repaid Mesmer’s generosity by mock- magnetic stuffs as paper, wool, silk, ness was due entirely to hysteria. ing him in the opera CosIfan Tutte. stone, and even animals and human Mesmer’s treatments restored Maria’s In 1774, Mesmer made the acquain- beings. He therefore reasoned that he sight but induced another hysterical tance of Father Maximilian H#{246}ll was not dealing with ordinary symptom: She lost her equilibrium. (1720-1792), Jesuit priest, professor “mineral” magnetism, but with a spe- Mesmerizing therapy for this condi- of astronomy at the University of cial kind that he named “animal” tion replaced it with depression. The Vienna, and court astrologer to the magnetism. Disease resulted from an treatments and counter-treatments mother of both Joseph II and Queen “obstacle” to the natural flow in the went on and on, and what was worse, Marie Antoinette of France, the Em- body of the fluidum channeled from Maria began to lose her musical tal- press Maria Theresa of Austria (1717- the stars to the body by the body’s ents. Maria’s parents, envisioning a 1780). Father H#{246}llwas affecting medi- own “animal” magnetism. Ill people future devoid of the income provided cal cures with artificial lodestones- could overcome this “obstacle” by to them by the empress and fearful of pieces of iron that had been strongly “mesmerizing” their body’s magnetic her displeasure when she learned of magnetized through a process devel- poles to induce a “crisis” (often in the their child’s newfound unremarkable oped during the period 1743-1751 form of convulsions) and so restore normalcy, demanded at a melodra- (Fig 19). Mesmer obtained a supply of their health or “harmony.” In a single matic meeting that Mesmer stop tam- these magnets from Father H#{246}lland short year, mesmerism and mesmeric pering with their daughter’s health. began to apply them to his patients cures became the rage of Vienna. The girl’s reaction to this meeting was (many of whom had numerous symp- Needless to say, the medical faculty of spectacular. She fell to the floor writh- toms that today would be recognized the University of Vienna was skepti- ing in convulsions and promptly be- as having hysterical or psychosomatic cal of Mesmer’s theory. They were came totally blind (again). As a result, origins) to assist the flow of the uni- also alarmed by his increasing fame an official committee of investigation versal “fluidum” from the atmo- and the royal favor he was beginning was set up to evaluate the efficacy of sphere to their bodies. Mesmer knew to achieve. This was to be his undo- Mesmer’s magnetic cures. On May 2, from Paracelsian teachings that this ing. 1777, Mesmer was ordered to “make fluidum (a form of magnetic flux from In January 1777, Mesmer undertook an end of this fraudulent practice,” the stars) had curative powers. The the cure of Maria Theresia von was expelled from the fraternity of cures he achieved were astounding. Paradies (1759-1824)-a child piano medicine of the city of Vienna, and However, since the true agency for virtuoso and prot#{233}g#{233}eof Empress was ordered to leave the city.

606 #{149}Radiology September 1991 Figure 18. Franz Anton Mesmer (1734- 1815). The public’s opinion of the man took b. two extreme forms: “Mille jaloux espnts en vain l’ont voulu nuire,/Mesmer, par tes soins Figure 17. (a) Franklin’s book Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America (London, 1751) is one of the most widely read and discussed books ever written on genereux,fNos maux ont disparus, a scientific subject. The influence of his writings on the affairs of the world extended beyond l’humanit#{233} respire./A thousand jealous spir- such mundane matters as government, medicine, and science-to the ratified regions of cou- its have vainly tried to harm you,/Mesmer; ture. (b) His invention of the lightning rod engendered the most daring fashion ever: light- by your generous care,/Our ills have disap- ning rod hats. Ladies were able to promenade about Paris safe in the knowledge that the long peared, humanity breathes” and “Vieilles, conducting wires that trailed behind them to the ground would keep their heads free of ex- jeunes, laides, belles,/Toutes aiment le doc- cess electrical “fluidum.” 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 in mer’s teachings. The Paris branch, the 1781 was fertile ground for his theo- Society of Harmony, was the most ries. Sir Isaac Newton’s (1642-1727) prestigious and exclusive. The Mar- is to doom it to failure. To succeed it is gravity, Voltaire’s (1694-1778) dis- quis de La Fayette (1757-1834) signed necessary to wrap oneself in mystery. courses on Newton’s theories, Fran- his membership contract to it on April It is necessary to unite men under the kiln’s electricity, the De Montgoffiere 5, 1784 (initiation fee, 100 louis d’or- pretext of experiment in physics, but, brothers’ (Etienne Jacques [1745-1799] about 50,000 U. S. 1991 dollars!). in reality, for the overthrow of and Michel Joseph [1740-18101) mys- Shortly afterward, he traveled to the despotism.” tenous gas and the “experience New World Colonies to visit George By the time Mesmer had reestab- aerostatique” that it produced (the Washington (1732-1799). He carried a lished himself in Paris in 1785 (partly first hot-air balloon ifight occurred on letter from Mesmer to Washington; at Marie Antoinette’s request), he had June 15, 1783)-these, not revolution, thus began a correspondence be- lost all control over his theories. His were to be the topics of discussion in tween these two men. Washington’s medical practice degenerated into the the salons of Paris for the next few perceptions on mesmerism combine extravagant, ludicrous, cultic displays years. Indeed, Maximilien Robespi- enthusiasm with a healthy skepticism. and rituals that we now associate erre’s (1758-1794) first public state- To Mesmer he wrote that “the discov- with him. Dozens of mesmerists ments were in defense of lightning ery of [magnetismi . . . if it should claimed that they alone held the “true rods (pointed ones). The popular en- prove as extensively beneficial as it is secrets” of mesmerism. A royal com- thusiasm for science was so strong said, must be fortunate indeed for mission to investigate mesmerism was that the wall between science and mankind, and rebound very highly to created by King Louis XVI of France pseudoscience began to crumble into the genius to whom it owes its birth.” (1754-1793) on March 12, 1784. It was the chasm of occultism, where mes- As time went on, the distinction composed of nine members: Four merism would dwell. between a follower of mesmerism and came from the medical faculty of the Mesmer set up a medical practice in an opponent of the status quo (by University of Paris (including Doctor Paris. His rise to fame and notoriety definition, then, a political revolution- Guillotin [1738-1814], inventor of a and the backlash of his success retrace ary) became blurred. Under Ber- “humane” method for execution-the the paths they followed in Vienna. gasse’s direction, mesmerism became guillotine), and five came from Mesmer left Paris late in 1781 to “re- a camouflaged political theory, and l’Acad#{233}mie des Sciences (including cuperate from the wounds that had the “magnetic clubs,” revolutionary Antoine Lavoisier [1743-1794] and the been inflicted on him by officialdom” cells. That this was his intention all ambassador from the newly founded while his followers remained behind along can be surmised from this state- United States of America, Benjamin to organize a popular front. A lawyer, ment that he made at one of the Soci- Franklin). The commission met at Nicolas Bergasse (1750-1832), oversaw ety of Harmony’s, by then, closed Franklin’s house in Passy, on the out- the establishment of “magnetic clubs” meetings: “The time has now come, skirts of Paris. On August 11, 1784, its throughout all of France-allegedly, for the revolution that France needs. work was completed, and a report for the purpose of disseminating Mes- But to attempt to produce one openly was drawn up by Franklin. It was sent

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}607 to the king in the form of the Rapport A des Commissaires Charges par le Roi de l’Examen du Magn#{233}tisme Animal (Fig TREATISE 20). Mesmer’s theories were declared C) I’ fraudulent. The French Revolution came in Art?flc.1 IViagnets; 1789. Robespierre’s retaliation for the In wLc t. thcwn rejection of his application to mem- An cafy and expeditious METKOD bership to l’Acad#{233}mie des Sciences (for lack of scientific credentials-he of making them, was, after all, a mesmerist) was to in- Superior to the heft Natural Ones: troduce as many of its members as he APJD ALSO, could to “Madame la Guillotine” (es- A Way of iznroving thc Natural Ones, pecially those, among them Lavoisier, and o(chan;sng or convcrtiu their PoLls. who had been on his credentials corn- b. mittee). Mesmer left France in 1789, DittO,... art Lkiwik wtn wandered throughout Europe, lived Figure 19. It is not clear who was the first to For making the Maria.rs NttIJe, in the belt Form, produce a strong artificial magnet. Three En- out the final years of his life a few and for wucbin them n4t advantageoufly, &. glishmen can stake a claim to this achieve- miles from his birthplace, and died in ment: the physician Gowin Knight (1713- 1815. The last years of Father HOll, 1772), the schoolmaster and amateur By J. MICHELI., B.A. Mesmer’s first instructor on the prop- physicistJohn Canton (1718-1772), and the Fellow of 5a’s Cu&e, Cki.(js. erties of magnets, were also troubled. astronomerJohn Michell (1724-1793). Dr The Jesuit order was abolished (again) Knight’s claim is based on precedence. Ac- counts of his bar magnets made of laminated in 1773, signaling a campaign of pub- a inc z steel and their superiority over the then lic defamation of the Jesuits. Doubts Pi.oIbyJ.ltWTh*st. Phacr* d. V$SV&asti’y, available natural and artificial magnets first SJ Sq W. L J.4GT a. about HOll’s astronomical observa- appear in the Philosophical Transactions of the .. LMSS *..m,C.1*Ta.S$T mfkti t, tions and scientific credibility were Royal Society in 1744. Unfortunately, Dr $ W. Tavau#{248}.s.sa, .I j.Mzaasu., ia C.mIr4s 3 II..vsa at !at.. ar43. ?&$TIII&a aiOaf.id. raised. These accusations pursued Knight never revealed his magnet-making and hurt him through the last 20 process. His rival was Canton, a good friend of Franklin. Canton’s fields of research were a. years of his life. His scientific reputa- magnets and meteorology. He hoped to tion was not rehabilitated until almost profit from the manufacture and sale of artifi- a century after his death. In this, he is cial magnets. Accounts of his magnets begin more fortunate than Mesmer. to appear in 1747, but he delayed publishing to use a stethoscope and to practice The credit for discovering the true his technique in the Philosophical Transactions percussion and auscultation. His book ofthe Royal Society until 1751. Canton was to nature of electromagnetism goes to Human Physiology was for many years rue his reticence, for the first published de- Hans Christian Oersted (1777-1851), a the standard university text. Elliotson scnption of the manufacture of artificial mag- professor of physics at the University nets is a book written by Michell in 1750: A became interested in magnetism of Copenhagen. The (possibly apocry- Treatise ofArtificial Magnets (Cambridge, 1750) sometime in 1829. By 1837 he was per- phal) moment occurred there in the (a). The similarity between Michell’s tech- forming at the University College winter of 1820 during a lecture dem- nique and Canton’s led the latter to cry foul, Hospital “painless” surgery on pa- onstration, when he noticed that a but his accusations came to naught. One tients anesthetized (hypnotized) with achievement is Michell’s alone: He intro- compass needle was deflected when a duced the term “Horse Shoe” magnet (b, “magnetic sleep.” His most famous current flowed through a nearby magnet labeled Fig 4). Patients undergoing medical case occurred in 1838 and wire. He carried out some experi- mesmeric treatments would have such mag- involved two hysterics, the sisters ments and found to his astonishment nets placed about their neck or they would Elizabeth and Jane Okey. Not only that not only did a current-carrying be given bar magnets to hold (b, magnet la- did magnetic treatments cure them, wire exert a force on a magnet, but a beled Fig 2). Perhaps we should let the last but they also gave them “clear [clair] word on the topic of magnet design be Frank- magnet also exerted a force on a coil sight [voyant]” or clairvoyance-the un’s: “Dr. Knight, inventor of steel magnets, of wire carrying an electric current. has wrote largely on that subject; but I have ability to visualize their internal or- The coil acted like a magnet, behaving not yet had leisure to pursue his writings gans and those of others. Elliotson as if it possessed magnetic north and with the attention necessary to become mas- had the sisters accompany him on his south poles. Magnetism and electric- ter of his doctrine.” medical rounds. Through magnets, he ity were somehow connected. Oer- would place them in a trancelike sted published his results on July 21, state. They then evaluated the state of 1820, in a four-page article written in (1791-1841). The classical edifice of the organs of his patients, and he Latin. Such was Oersted’s fame after electromagnetism was capped in 1865 would prescribe appropriate treat- this article appeared that to avoid by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) ments for their ailments. This early confusion (?) the illustrious Danish with the publication of his electro- imaging technique and the idiosyn- storyteller Hans Christian Andersen magnetic wave theory of light. cratic behavior of Elizabeth Okey (1805-1875) began to refer to Oersted The first “magnetic image” was cre- brought him into conflict with his col- as the “Great Hans Christian” and to ated in 1838 by Dr John Elliotson leagues. Elizabeth had a habit of ap- himself as the “Little Hans Christian.” (1791-1868) (Fig 21), professor of the proaching certain patients, giving a The pace of scientific research on theory and practice of medicine at convulsive shudder, and screaming, magnetism skyrocketed. Within a few London University, president of the “Great Jacky [the angel of death] is years the properties of electromagne- Royal Medical and Chirurgical Soci- sitting on the bedclothes!” It was be- tism were worked out by Andr#{233}Marie ety, founding member of the Univer- lieved that the precipitous end of Ampere (1775-1836), Jean-Baptiste sity Hospital, and disciple of Mesmer. some dying patients was provoked by Biot (1774-1862), and Felix Savart Elliotson was one of the first doctors her oracular zeal. The University Hos-

608 #{149}Radiology September 1991 two research teams: One comprised Felix Bloch (1905-1983) (Fig 22a), Wit- ford Hansen (b 1928), and Martin Packard (b 1921) (11-14); the other, Edward Purcell (b 1912) (Fig 22b), Henry Torrey (b 1911), and Robert Pound (b 1919) (15). These two teams worked independently on this phe- nomenon, unaware of the other’s re- search, at universities on opposite coasts of the United States (respec- tively, Stanford and Harvard). For their NMR work, Bloch and Purcell were jointly awarded the Nobel prize b. for physics in 1952. Figure 20. (a) The report to King Louis XVI It is interesting that Bloch and Pur- of France from the commission he estab- cell perceived NMR in very different lished to examine mesmerism caused quite a ways. To describe how so, we will sensation. It provided much material for the give a short exposition of NMR. When public imagination and for doggerels. a group of atoms whose nuclei pos- (b) This print from that time, entitled Le Mag- n#{233}tismeD#{233}voil#{233}(Magnetism Unveiled), shows sess a magnetic moment is placed in a Franklin leading the commission members in strong static magnetic field, their nu- an attack on mesmerists. He holds aloft the clei can be conceived of as magnetic commission’s report. The mesmerists flee (lit- dipoles precessing about this field at a a. erally, fly) from its glow of truth. They leave frequencyf, which is defined by the behind their gullible patients and a smashed multiple of a constant that is unique mesmeric tub, emptied of its magnetic fluid. The following is the punchline of one of the to those atoms (their gyromagnetic pital passed the following resolution most widely reproduced epigrams of the ratio, -y) and the magnitude of the in 1838: “That the Hospital Commit- time: “Si quelqu’n espnt original/Persiste field (call it B). This results in the Lar- tee be instructed to take such steps as encore dans son d#{233}lire,/Il sera permis de lui mor equation-f = -yB/2’rr -named they shall deem most advisable to dire:/Crois au magn#{233}tisme . . . animalYOf any for the Irish physicist Joseph Larmor mind so fanatical/That it persists in this delu- prevent the practice of mesmerism (1857-1942), who introduced the sion,/One must say as a conclusion:fBelieves within the hospital.” Elliotson aban- equation in 1896 in connection with a in magnetism . . . animal!” Franklin was not doned his medical practice and de- opposed to cures based on patient psychol- classical analysis of the Zeernan effect voted his life to the publication of The ogy. In 1784, he wrote “my Sentiments con- (16,17). II these dipoles are sirnulta- Zoist, A Journal of Cerebral Physiology cerning the Cures perform’d . . . Mesmer . . . I neously irradiated by an electromag- [phrenology] and Mesmerism and their cannot but fear that the Expectation of great netic radio-frequency (RF) field of a Advantage from the new Method of treating Applications to Human Welfare (1843- Diseases, will prove a Delusion. That Delu- frequency matching-in resonance- 1856). His use of magnetism as a diag- sion may however in some cases be of use that of their precession, they will in- nostic tool was not to be vindicated while it lasts. There are in every great City a teract with that field. Physically, this for 150 years. Number of Persons who are never in health, means that the nuclei will absorb en- At the birth of the 20th century because they are fond of Medicines and al- ergy from the RF field and change came both Wilhelm Konrad R#{246}ntgen’s ways taking them, whereby they derange the their nuclear state. This change can be natural Functions, and hurt their Constitu- (1845-1923) discovery of x rays (1895) experimentally detected in either of tions. If these people can be persuaded to and the quantum theory. That mag- forbear their Drugs in Expectation of being one of two ways: first, by fixing the netic fields affected atomic phenom- cured by only the Physician’s Finger or an RF frequency and monitoring the ena was immediately observed by the Iron Rod pointing at them, they may possibly amount of power the atoms absorb Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman (1865- find good Effects tho’ they mistake the from it as a function of the strength of 1943). He demonstrated that the opti- Cause.” the static field in which they are im- cal spectrum of the sodium atom mersed (ie, their precession fre- could be affected by placing the atom quency), and second, by fixing the in a strong magnetic field (1) (the Zee- rnent of nuclear magnetic resonance strength of the static field (the nuclei’s man effect). To the scientists of that (NMR) (a term coined by Rabi) in precession frequency) and monitoring time, this implied that atoms pos- atomic and molecular beams in 1938. with an antenna the strength of the sessed a magnetic field. It became es- The Nobel Prize for physics was interaction of the magnetic dipoles sential that the quantum theory be awarded to Stern in 1943 and to Rabi with the RF field as a function of the able to describe the behavior of an in 1944 for work on atomic and nu- frequency of the RF field. The former atomic nucleus immersed in a strong clear magnetic phenomena. experiment can be described in terms magnetic field. Once the theory was NMR has been the subject of in- of quantum physics as the resonance formulated it was necessary to con- tense research since 1936. A pioneer absorption of energy-Purcell’s ex- firm it through experiment. The exist- in this field was the physicist Cornelis periment, done on paraffin. The latter ence of the intrinsic magnetic mo- Gorter (b 1907), who published sev- experiment can be described in terms ment (field) of the atom was demon- eral articles (6-10) on his unsuccessful of the precession of a magnetic dipole strated (2) by Otto Stern (1888-1969) attempts to detect the phenomenon and the induction of an electromotive and Walter Gerlach (1889-1979?) in (it was his bad luck to use a difficult force or voltage in a detection coil 1924. Subsequent research (3-5) by experimental technique and an inap- (antenna)-Bloch’s experiment, done Isidor Rabi (1898-1988) and his col- propriate sample in his studies). NMR on water. At the time that these two leagues led to the first direct measure- in a solid was first reported in 1946 by men almost simultaneously reported

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}609 a. b. Figure 22. (a) Felix Bloch and (b) Edward Purcell, corecipients of the Nobel Prize for physics Figure 21. DrJohn Elliotson. A briffiant cli- in 1952 for their independent discovery of NMR. This history would be different except for an nician and, by all accounts, one of the ablest accident. Bloch has said that his group’s first attempts to see the NMR signal were in vain be- physicians in London. Among his friends cause of his miscalibration of the electromagnet they were using. It was while they were turn- were Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and ing off the magnet (14) to make some adjustments that they first saw the NMR signal “drifting William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863). across the oscilloscope screen.” (Reprinted with permission of the AlP Meggers Gallery of No- The latter dedicated his work Pendennis to bel Laureates.) Elliotson: To DrJohn Elliotson My Dear Doctor, Thirteen months ago when it seemed such long relaxation times can be in- was done by Saul Meiboom (b 1916) likely that this story had come to a close a convenient for the observation of the and David Gill (21) in 1958 would one kind friend brought you to my bedside, induction effect. It is recommendable, day produce one of the standard im- whence in all probability I should never have risen but for your constant watchfulness and in this case, to add to the substance a aging pulse sequences-what we now skill. I like to recall your great goodness and certain percentage of paramagnetic call the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill kindness (as well as many acts of others, atoms or molecules. They will essen- spin-echo pulse sequence. The intro- showing quite a surprising friendship and tially act as catalysts . . . greatly short- duction in 1966 by Richard Ernst (b sympathy) at that time, when kindness and ening the relaxation time . . . even if 1933) and Weston Anderson (22) (b friendship were most needed and welcome. they are present in a small percentage 1928) of Fourier transform techniques And as you would take no other fee but thanks, let me record here in behalf of me and do not otherwise affect the nuclei to the analysis of magnetic resonance and mine, and subscribe myself under consideration.” Six weeks after phenomena marks the moment when Yours, most sincerely and gratefully, Purcell first detected NMR, a new the technical and analytic armamen- W.M. Thackeray graduate assistant began work at his tarium necessary for nuclear magnetic laboratory: Nicolaas Bloembergen (b resonance imaging became complete. 1920), a Dutch physicist displaced by Fourier transform NMR was em- their experiments it was not apparent the devastation of the European re- ployed in the study of molecular dy- to them, or to anyone else, that they search laboratories caused by World namics by Robert Vold (23) (b 1942) in were presenting the same effect. This War II. Two years after Bloembergen’s 1968 and by Raymond Freeman (24- realization came only when the two arrival, he, Purcell, and Pound pub- 26) (b 1924) in 1969. The application to research groups met in the summer of lished a theory of nuclear magnetic magnetic resonance imaging of their 1946. The terminology of the two ex- relaxation (18). So widespread has experimental technique would yield periments has fused over time; thus, been its application that, over time, the second standard imaging pulse we speak about both nuclear mag- the theory and its expository article sequence, the inversion-recovery netic resonance and free induction have taken as their name the initials pulse sequence. decay. of their three authors: BPP. Bloember- The NMR techniques that led inex- NMR developed quickly as a scien- gen was one of the recipients of the orably to imaging research were ap- tific discipline. Bloch introduced the 1981 Nobel prize in physics “for his plied to biologic systems as quickly as concepts of a “thermal” or “longi- contribution to the development of they were ushered in. Thomas Shaw tudinal” relaxation time (Ti) and a laser spectroscopy.” et at (27-32) used NMR to monitor the “transversal” relaxation time (T2) in a The need to sustain the NMR signal water content of foods as early as seminal article (12) he wrote in 1946. over extended periods of time for the 1951. Complementary work on bio- In that same article he derived the measurement of NMR phenomena logic samples was done concurrently “Bloch equations,” which are still the spurred Erwin Hahn (19) (b 1921) to by Erik Odeblad (33-45) at the Karo- basis of all analyses of NMR experi- the development of the spin echo in linska Institute in Sweden. For 30 years, ments. He also provided the rationale 1950. This technique was subse- this tenacious investigator produced for the use in NMR of those sub- quently improved in 1954 by Herman about 20 articles on his inquiries into stances that are called contrast agents Carr (b 1924) and Edward Purcell (20). the NMR properties of every conceiv- in magnetic resonance imaging:”... The variation on their work, which able human tissue, fluid, and secretion,

610 #{149}Radiology September 1991 inorganic gels that have an oriented ment and rewriting his manuscript in a structure of water with mobility lim- more exuberant style, he produced ited by adsorption processes”-possi- the result that he desired-the paper bly the first allusion in the NMR liter- (74) was accepted by Nature and pub- ature to the theory of “free” and lished in its March 16, 1973, issue. “bound” water in living cells, the per- The field of NMR was prepared to ceived source of contrast in magnetic incarnate Lauterbur’s idea. Programs resonance images. Subsequent re- to enlarge and refine NMR spectrom- search in that same year by Cerb#{243}n eters for biologic research had been in enabled him to observe the lipid NMR existence for some time. It had been signal in microorganisms and that ionic demonstrated in 1966 that it was pos- concentration affects the behavior of the sible to simultaneously monitor in vitro lipid phase (50). Ionic complexing in the electric activity and the NMR spec- muscle tissue soon became a separate trum of a beating turtle heart (75)-an line of NMR research (51-54). amazing feat for its time. In 1967 Tho- NMR evidence for the existence of mas Lingon (b 1941) constructed an “ordered water” in living cells was NMR spectrometer large enough to the research goal for many scientists surround a human arm (76). One that (55-66) during 1965-1971. It emerged could contain an anesthetized rat (77) from the NMR spectra of water in sys- was built by Jasper Jackson (b 1926) in tems as varied as relaxed and con- 1968. Irwin Weisman did his 1972 tu- tracted frog skeletal muscle (55), par- mor research (70) on rat tails in vivo. tially dried yeast cells (57), decom- Thus, Lauterbur was able to publish Figure 23. Paul Lauterbur. The technique posing fish musde (58), oriented (with his first image-a cross-sectional im- that he formulated to produce an NMR im- respect to the NMR spectrometer age of two vials of water-in 1973. age couples, within the body, magnetic field Within a gradients and RF fields; therefore, he de- magnetic field) rabbit sciatic nerve year of the appearance of cided to name it zeugmatography, from the (59), and rat skeletal muscle (63). It that image, four methods of NMR im- Greek word #{128}Irjp.a(zeugma), meaning “the was only a matter of time before aging had been demonstrated by four result ofjoining together.” The technique someone would try to see what, if geographically disparate groups (78- has flourished-the name has not. (Photo- any, differences appeared in the NMR 81); the race to produce the first NMR graph courtesy of Dr Lauterbur.) “signature” of a tissue as a conse- image of a human had begun. But that quence of disease-and there hangs is another story. #{149} the tale of the origin of magnetic reso- including blood serum (34), cervical nance imaging. Acknowledgments: Many people have helped mucus (35), human milk (36), vitreous In 1971, Raymond Damadian (b me in the production of this manuscript. Jeffrey Weinreb, MD, prodded me into assembling my fluid (37), eye tissue (37), vaginal cells 1936) reported (67) that NMR could research on the tangled history of medicine and (38), uterine glandular secretions (39), be used to discriminate between ma- magnetism into a (somewhat) readable manu- and sputum (44). In 1959, Jerome lignant tumors and normal tissue. Ef- script. Immeasurable thanks to Priscilla Kronish, Singer (46,47) (b 1921) created a forts to reproduce this work were PhD, and Anne Volpe, New York University method for the measurement of blood quickly set in motion (68-71). In Sep- Bobst Science Library. That for 20 years they have allowed me to ask them to find for me “the flow rates, which he named “spin tember 1971, Paul Lauterbur (b 1928) book with the blue/green/yellow cover that! tagging.” It was used in 1970 by him (Fig 23) watched Leon Saryan as he was reading last week” makes them candidates and Oliver Morse (48) to quantitate compiled the NMR spectra of differ- for canonization. That they have always found the blood flow in the arm of a child ent rat tissues (71,72). In Lauterbur’s the book in question makes them exemplars of their profession. My ability to write this article (Singer’s daughter). It is the basis of own words (73), “although there with almost exdusively the sources available at several magnetic resonance imaging were clear differences . . . there Bobst Library is proof of the depth of its collec- techniques now under development seemed no plausible reason for the tions. Martha Hehners and Tony Jalandoni for angiographic and pseudo-Doppler differences . . . even normal tissues beautifully-and tolerantly-photographed, imaging. differed markedly among themselves and rephotographed, and re-re-photographed the illustrations included herein. Lionel Casson, While Shaw, Odeblad, their collab- in NMR relaxation times, and I won- PhD, professor emeritus of the New York Urn- orators, and other researchers were dered whether there might be some versity Classics department and a dear friend of employing NMR to quantitate the way to noninvasively map out such mine, saved my sanity by tracking down the lost (to my mind) reference to magnetic islands in water content and the NMR quantities within the body. The prin- Ptolemy’s Geography (couldn’t you have done it “signatures” (Ti and T2) of tissues, ciple upon which a technique might before I spent 2 months reading Procopius?). He another group of scientists pressed be based, the encoding of spatial co- also-without chastisement-helped me make NMR to the analysis of the physico- ordinates by known magnetic field use of t’ie tattered remnants of my neglected chemical characteristics, behavior, shapes, occurred to me the same Greek and Latin. Jean Le Corbeiller, PhD, and Isaac Asimov, PhD, old friends whose praise of and dynamics of water in living sys- evening. Over the next several days, a this manuscript (“we didn’t know that you tems. One of the earliest reports dem- general method.. . to generate a true knew so much”) I accept with some qualms,

onstrating that NMR could be used to image . . . became clear.” The terse helped me maintain, in modern verse, the flavor study the structure of water in living paper that he sent to Nature describ- of Old French doggerels. Irvin Kricheff, MD, proofread the manuscript-and gleefully microorganisms was written in 1964 ing his methods was rejected because pointed out my one (absent-minded) historical by the Mexican scientist Jorge Cerb#{243}n “it was not of sufficiently wide signifi- error (no one will ever know it). Howard Simon, (b 1930) (49). His investigation of the cance for inclusion in Nature” (a state- MD, of Philips Medical Systems, assisted me in water NMR signal from suspensions ment to be pondered when one con- tracking down some details of the modern de- velopment of NMR. My awe of Diane Lang, my of microorganisms suggested to him siders that Nature rejected the first editor at RSNA, is without bounds. Her knowl- “that the water spectrum in microor- paper describing the Krebs cyde). By edge of the elephantine arcana associated with ganisms appears similar to those in writing a lengthy rejoinder to this judg- publishing has immeasurably improved the

Volume 180 #{149}Number 3 Radiology #{149}611 form of this manuscript. Finally, my thanks to 31. Shaw TM, Elsken RH, Kunsman CH. Mois- 57. Koga 5, Echigo A, Old T. Nuclear magnetic Irene Ivers who searched the RSNA files for a hire determination of foods by hydrogen nu- resonance spectra of water in partially dried clei magnetic resonance. J Agric Food Chem yeast cells. Appl Microbiol 1966; 14:466-467. photo of Dr Lauterbur. 1953; 36:1070-1076. 58. Sussman MV, Chin L. Nuclear magnetic res- 32. Shaw TM, Elsken RH. Investigation of pro- onance spectrum changes accompanying rigor References ton magnetic resonance line width of sorbed morris. Nature 1966; 211:414. water. JChem Phys 1953; 21:565-566. 59. Chapman G, McLauchlan KA. Oriented Wa- 1. Zeeman P. On the influence of magnetism 33. Odeblad E, Lindstr#{228}m G. Some preliminary ter in the sciatic nerve of rabbit. Nature 1967; on the nature of light emitted by a substance. observations on the proton magnetic reso- 215:391-392. 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