[Oradlist] Intraoral X-ray phosphor viewing screen

[Benn, Douglas K.]

I saw today that a non-dentist has just obtained a "rare phosphor screen hand held intra-oral X- ray viewer" as shown in the attached photo. Has anybody seen anything like this and can provide some info? I am assuming that if it is a X-ray phosphor viewing screen that it was produced around 1898-1920 but that is only a guess on my part. It is a fascinating link to the early days of radiology. Similar to about 15 years ago when I was lecturing a group of dental assistants on the history of Edmund Kells. At the end of recounting his sad story, an elderly assistant put up her hand and said "I worked with Dr. X who worked with Dr. Kells and here is what happened the day he shot himself." She then went on to describe how Dr. Kell's physician had given the bad news to Kells about wanting to amputate his other arm. Apparently his office was on the 4th floor of the same building as his physician and he said he needed to go back to his office to make some arrangements. After that he shot himself although she did not go into the details. Presumably he must have said something to one of his colleagues so she could relate this story. Of course it is all very anecdotal but morbidly interesting.

Best wishes.

Douglas 

Dr Douglas K Benn, BDS, M.Phil., Ph.D., Dipl. Dental Radiology (Royal College of Radiologists, England).
Professor
Dept of General Dentistry
Creighton University Dental School
2500 California Plaza
Omaha
Nebraska 68178

Tel: (402)280 5025
Fax: (402)280 5094


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/oradlist/attachments/20091003/bf88e0af/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: intra oral X ray phosphor viewer.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 17835 bytes
Desc: intra oral X ray phosphor viewer.jpg
URL: <http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/private/oradlist/attachments/20091003/bf88e0af/attachment-0001.jpg>