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. 2006 Sep-Oct;13(5):465-9.
doi: 10.1197/jamia.M2127. Epub 2006 Jun 23.

The story behind the development of the first whole-body computerized tomography scanner as told by Robert S. Ledley

Dean F Sittig  1 , Joan S Ash, Robert S Ledley
Affiliations

The story behind the development of the first whole-body computerized tomography scanner as told by Robert S. Ledley

Dean F Sittig et al. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2006 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

“The army called me down to New York [in 1950]. I was with New York University (NYU)—and the colonel said to me, ‘Well, if you volunteer to be in the army, then you'll become a lieutenant, an officer. But if you don't volunteer, you'll be drafted anyway, and sent to boot camp. So I volunteered. And they sent me to medical field service school in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. And that was kind of interesting. And then, I guess my card dropped out, they wanted a dentist who was a physicist. And that was me.”

Robert S. Ledley

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Mechanical drawing of the ACTA scanner from Dr. Ledley's patent.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The 0100 ACTA Scanner (which stands for automated, computerized, transverse axial scanner) is the world's first whole-body scanner.
Figure 3
Figure 3
The computer used to run the ACTA Scanner.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Broering NC. Presentation of the Morris F. Collen Award to Robert S. Ledley, DDS J Am Med Inform Assoc 1999;6(3):260-264. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cormack AM. Representation of a Function by Its Line Integrals, with Some Radiological Applications J Appl Phys 1963;34,9:2722-2727.
    1. Dayhoff MO, Eck RV, Chang MA, Sochard MR. Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure. Silver Spring, MD: National Biomedical Research Foundation; 1965.
    1. Hounsfield GN. Historical notes on computerized axial tomography J Can Assoc Radiol 1976;27(3):135-142. - PubMed
    1. Huang HK, Ledley RS. Three-dimensional image reconstruction from in vivo consecutive transverse axial sections Comput Biol Med 1975;5(3):165-170. - PubMed

MeSH terms

Personal name as subject