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Rheumatology 2004; 43: 931-933
Rheumatology Vol. 43 No. 7 © British Society for Rheumatology 2004; all rights reserved

Paper

A brief history of musculoskeletal ultrasound: ‘From bats and ships to babies and hips’

Heberden Historical Series/Series Editor M. Jayson

D. Kane, W. Grassi1, R. Sturrock and P. V. Balint2

Centre for Rheumatic Diseases, University Department of Medicine, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow, UK, 1 Department of Rheumatology, Ancona, Italy and 2 3rd Rheumatology Department, National Institute of Rheumatology and Physiotherapy, Budapest, Hungary.

Correspondence to: D. Kane. E-mail: dk44a@clinmed.gla.ac.uk

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.


   Spallanzani's bat problem
 
High frequency, non-audible sound waves over 20 kHz are termed ultrasound and have existed in nature for over 1 million years. Many species including bats use ultrasound to navigate flight and to locate food sources such as moths. The first detailed experiments that indicated that non-audible sound might exist were performed on bats by Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799) an Italian priest and physiologist [1]. Seeking to explain the ability of bats to navigate flight in darkness, he demonstrated that blindfolded bats could navigate but that they bumped against obstacles when their mouths were covered. After many experiments, Spallanzani concluded that ‘The ear of the bat serves more efficiently (than the eye) for seeing, or at least for measuring distances ... ', a matter of scientific heresy in the 1790s. ‘Spallanzani's bat problem’, as it was termed, remained a scientific mystery until 1938, when finally the young Harvard students, Donald . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Submarines and battleships
 

   Medical ultrasound imaging and the Glasgow story
 

   Musculoskeletal ultrasonography
 

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