Early Use of X-ray Machines and Electrocardiographs at The Pennsylvania Hospital

TODAY physicians accept machines as a desirable part of medical practice and use them to care for patients throughout the United States. Such was not always the case. Medical technology has been widely used only since the early 20th century. 1,2 Many turn-of-the-century machines found their way into the growing number of hospitals. 3-5 Perhaps the machines that had the greatest impact were those that revealed parts of the human body previously hidden from view, such as the x-ray machine, or made visible otherwise imperceptible actions of the body, such as the electrocardiograph. This article examines how the x-ray machine became a part of routine patient care at the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, between 1897 and 1927, and compares that process with the introduction of the electrocardiograph. It differs from most previous historical analysis of medical technology by focusing on how these instruments were actually used, not on how they were