Abstract:
The history of ultrasound dates back to 1794 when Lazzaro
Spallanzani, an Italian biologist demonstrated that the ability
of bats to navigate accurately through the dark was due to
echo reflection from high frequency inaudible sound. In 1826,
Jean-Daniel Colladon, a Swiss physicist, successfully
determined the speed of sound in the waters of Lake Geneva,
but the real breakthrough in the evolution of high frequency
echo sounding techniques came when the piezo-electric
effect in certain crystals was discovered by Pierre and
Jacques Curie in Paris in 1880. Two researchers are noted in
the history of ultrasound and medical imaging. They are:
Doctor Karl Theodore Dussik of Austria, who published the
first paper on medical ultrasonics in 1942 based on his
research on transmission ultrasound investigation of the brain;
and Professor Ian Donald of Scotland, who developed
practical technology and applications for ultrasound in the
1950s.
