The pioneers

The Museum of Radiology owns a library with a collection with over 3,000 volumes on the history and the scientific evolution of Diagnostic Imaging. Among them, various treatises dating back to the end of the 19th century and the collections of ancient scientific journals stand out.

The exhibition design of the Museum includes a large collection of photographs and documents of the most important pioneers of the history of Italian radiology.

The sanitary and radiosurgical staff during the inauguration of the Giovanni Pascale Foundation in Naples in 1934. The photograph also shows the responsibles for the diagnostic and therapeutic radiology: Antonio D'Istria, Guido Piccinino, Alessandro Fucci, Aldo Piergrossi, Vincenzo Muto. Become a National Institute for the Study and Treatment of Tumors, dedicated to the internationally renowned Senator and Oncologist Giovanni Pascale, this Institution is today one of the most important in its sector and it is well recognized as Institute for Scientific Hospitalization and Treatment.

The Institute of Radiology in Parma, during the 30s of the 20th century: the picture shows two control board for the radiographic device.

Professor Armando Rossi founded at the end of the first decade of the 20th century the Radiology and Physical Therapy Laboratory of Parma. Subsequently the laboratory became the Central Institute of Radiology and Physical Therapy.

A historical printed by L'Osservatore Romano in which prof. Luigi Turano describes the use of the "cobalt bomb" and the betatron application for the tumors treatment. Luigi Turano, professor of Radiology at the University La Sapienza of Rome, was president of the Italian Society of Medical Radiology (SIRM) in the 50s of the 20th century and he was also the founder of the Nuclear Radiology.

Professor Vittorio Maragliano was a true pioneer of radiology. Before his graduation in 1901 he was already attending the electrotherapy office in the Medical Clinic of Genoa, which had been equipped with X-ray devices with fluorescent screens in 1896. Prof. Vittorio Maragliano was one of the founders of the Italian Society of Medical Radiology (SIRM), and also one of the world's leading experts in respiratory diagnostic radiology, and in particular for tuberculosis disease. Prof. Maragliano had been also responsible for the insights that high-frequency currents generate effects in tissues.

Outline of the surgical interventions suffered by prof. Maragliano due to the radio-induced lesions. The professor. Maragliano, like many other pioneers and martyrs in the early days of radiology, felt the effect of the handling of radioactive sources injuring his hands.

Doctor Carlo Luraschi, specialized in electrotherapy of nervous diseases and responsible of a laboratory of "medical electricity", was one of the first to understand the importance of X-ray discovery. On 12 April 1886 he presented to the Lombard Medical Association a work entitled "On sinusoidal alternating currents, high frequency currents and their relationship with the production of Röntgen rays". He was responsible for the first radiographs achieved in Lombardy in the November of the same year. In 1898, in the Maggiore Hospital in Milan, he made the first skull radiograph to search for a bullet, with a two-hour patient pose. Carlo Luraschi was also the inventor of the radiointensimeter, the first measuring instrument to quantify the emission of X-rays.

In 1930, inaugurated by the Prince Umberto of Savoia, the IX congress of the Italian Society of Medical Radiology (SIRM) took place in Turin. During the conference, the Professor Alessandro Vallebona from Genoa presented his work entitled "A technical modality for the radiographic dissociation of shadows applied to the study of the skull". This study founded a new radiological technique, stratigraphy, which allowed to obtain a body analytic vision.

Mario Ponzio was Professor of Radiology in the Royal University of Turin from 1936 to 1955, with a full tenured professorship and contributing to the official institution of the section in the Medical Faculty in 1952. He is recognized as one of the prominent founding members of the Italian Society of Medical Radiology (SIRM) whose he was the first secretary, entertaining the communications with other international radiology organizations.

Roentgen-therapy practiced by prof. Enrico Benassi and prof. Pietro Ollino by means of a specific device that allowed to reproduce on a map the distribution of radioactive substances in various parts of the body. Benassi and Ollino worked in Turin in 1956 on the first high-energy devices, later developed for nuclear medicine, in the Mario Ponzio Center for Medical Radiobiology.

X-ray hair removal for ringworm treatment, at the Photoradiotherapeutic Institute of Florence, in 1906. The radiologist is holding the cryptoscope that he usually calibrated by observing the bones of own hand.

The lupus vulgaris therapy with ultraviolet rays, at the Photoradiotherapeutic Institute of Florence, in 1906. The photo shows a large Finsen device with ultraviolet rays on ischemic fields. The doctor in the foreground is Professor Celso Pelizzari, the director of the Institute.

Participants at the XI congress of the Italian Society of Medical Radiology held in Perugia in 1934. They are placed along the stairway that leads to Sala dei Notari in the Perugia town hall. Among them: president prof. Milani, vice-president prof. Attilj, prof. Lapenna, prof. Epiphanius, prof. Tandoja, prof. Armando Rossi, Guarini and the consorts of professors Milani and Bellucci.

Prof. B. Bellucci with his collaborators at the School of Radiology in Perugia, 1955

Professor Domenico D'Arman while performing a radiological examination of the forearm in 1896. He was director of an "Electrotherapy Service" at the Venice Hospital in 1880, where he used a Croockes tube to carry out the first studies of Roentgengraphy since January 1986.

Professor A. Berti, director of the radiological service of the medical clinic of Padua, later head physician in Vicenza in 1920. He studied, with prof. G. Giavedoni, the digestive system by means of X-rays.

Prof. G. Giavedoni and prof. A. De Giovanni was the founder of one of the first radiology diagnosis centers in the Veneto. In 1913 he became professor of Medical Pathology, carrying out, with prof. A. Berti, various studies about the digestive system under X-rays.