Report by Dr Arpan K Banerjee Chair ISHRAD
The 13th annual ISHRAD (International Society for the History of Radiology) symposium this year was co organised and hosted by the SFR (French Society of Radiology) and was held on October 5, 2024, in the Palais des Congres in Paris as a part of the French annual radiology congress. This was the second time ISHRAD and the SFR have held a joint meeting the previous meeting was held in Paris in Oct 2021 just after the Covid outbreak.
The theme of the annual conference this year was ‘Pioneers in radiology worldwide at the time of Röntgen’ a theme chosen to tie in with the publication and launch of a new book on this topic. (See info at the end of report.)
Following the AGM Dr Arpan K. Banerjee Chair of ISHRAD delivered an opening address with Prof Denis Krausé from the SFR.
The opening talk was delivered by Jan Rabe from Germany on ‘Two decades before the discovery of X-rays in Germany: Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen in Strasbourg’. Röntgen spent a brief period of his career here where he was associate Professor of Physics.
Patrick Mornet who has written a biography of Contremoulins delivered the next lecture on ‘Gaston Contremoulins: Forgotten heritage’ in French. Contremoulins was a great pioneer of French radiology. He was a scientific photographer who turned his hand to the new science of X-rays and made many advances including stereotactic localisation amongst others.
The next talk co-authored by Phillipe Uytterhaegen, René Van Tiggelen and Renaat Van den Broeck from the Belgian Museum of Radiology was titled ‘De Nobele and Henrard, Belgian pioneers of Radiography’. It was delivered by Renaat Van den Broeck, speaking about Henrard and Philippe Uytterhaegen about De Nobele.
Mats Geijer from Sweden talked about ‘The first decade of Swedish Radiology’ including the pioneers Tage Sjogren, Thor Stenbeck, Forsell and others.
Adrian Thomas from UK talked about ‘Edwin Hurry Fenwick and the origins of uroradiology’.
In absence of Uwe Busch from the Deutsche Röntgen Museum, Chiara Walter presented on his behalf an interesting talk on a ‘Selection of some of the important X-Ray images that changed the scientific world‘. It was interesting to be reminded that Anna Bertha Ludwig Rontgen’s hand X-ray was not the sole image in this category!
This led to the section of the meeting attended by Prof Rymer co-chaired with Prof Krausé where the Antoine Béclère Medal was handed out. Francis Joffre an interventional radiologist was one of the recipients and gave a small talk on the history of stents and a tribute was read by Philippe Devred from France about Gabriel Kalifa the distinguished paediatric radiologist the other recipient who had sadly passed away recently.
In the afternoon Anna Kätker from the Deutsches Röntgen Museum delivered the talk on ‘Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s last years – with an insight into his will’ co-authored with Uwe Busch. Röntgen lost a lot of money during the hyperinflation in Germany during the 1920’s.
Denis Krausé from France delivered a talk on the pioneer from Austria ‘Guido Holzknecht, Chief and Soul of the Viennese School of Medical Radiology’ co-authored with Frederic Roz. Holzknecht made many early contributions to chest radiology amongst other achievements.
Judith Amorosa from USA talked about Hungarian pioneers ‘The first Hungarian pioneers in Radiology inspired by Rontgen’s discovery of X-Rays’ including Bela Alexander.
Next, three trainee radiologists from the Northwest of UK Leong, Gopikrishna and Aziz gave a joint presentation on ‘Pioneers in the advancement of Radiology in Malaysia’ delivered by Weii Leong.
Arpan K Banerjee from the UK and Chair ISHRAD followed with a talk on ‘Francis Henry Williams an American radiology pioneer and father of American Radiology’. Williams from Boston is considered the father of American Radiology and one of the world’s first chest radiologists.
Next J F Monville from Belgium gave a talk on ‘Demonstration of the Röntgen Rays at the Reichstag in 1896’ followed by Prof Dondelinger’s talk ‘The radiograph ‘hand with gunshot’ signed by professor M I Pupin is a forgery’.
Adrian Thomas from UK talked about ‘The Origins of Military Radiology’ which led on nicely to Camilla Maiani from the Musee Curie and her talk about ‘Marie Curie, Radiology in war 1914-1918’ which covered her work with radiology equipped mobile ambulances during the Great War.
Edwin Aird from UK talked about a ‘A history of radiotherapy: X-rays radium and radon from 1896-1920’s’.
Bruno Bonnemain from France delivered the last talk on ‘George Massiot, engineer, and visionary’.
Dr Arpan K Banerjee from ISHRAD delivered a concluding address and the SFR with the organisers Frederic Roz and Dennis Krausé were thanked.
The meeting concluded with a book launch held in the area where a small exhibit from the Museum of Radiology had been displayed.
The book ‘Pioneers in radiology worldwide at the time of Rontgen’ contains 195 biographies of pioneers from 38 countries with an international multi authorship under the editorship of the SFR, French Museum of Radiology and ISHRAD (International Society for the History of Radiology). Pioneers included in the new book were people from medical, physics, engineering and science backgrounds reflecting the interests of the selfless pioneers from yesteryear many who sadly became radiation martyrs. The book is profusely illustrated and indexed and will appeal to a wide range of readers.
The book is obtainable from the websites below.
https://eboutique.radiologie.fr/produit/pioneers-in-radiology-worldwide/
