How do those shoes look on you? Too tight on the fingers? Too wide in the heel? Meet the “Foot-O-Scope” to eliminate doubt and take a scientific approach to the correct fit of your shoes
When the German engineer and physicist accidentally discovered a mysterious light that passed through most substances and left a ghostly image of the inside of an object, I doubt he thought of shoes.
In fact, I didn’t even know what that light was, so he called it “x-rays”, the “X” for the unknown. That name was kept for English speakers, although in many other languages it is known as Roentgen rayswas a November 8, 1895 of its discovery.
X-rays were the basis of the fluoroscope.
Röntgen published his discoveries on December 28, 1895and in a month, “On a New Kind of Rays” was translated into English and . Three weeks later, Science republished it. The popular press was also quick to pick up on this wonderful and unknown light that allowed to see inside the human body.
Like Marie and Pierre Curie, Röntgen refused to sign any patent so that humanity could benefit from this new method of consulting nature. Scientists, engineers, and doctors plunged headlong into X-ray research.
Experimenters quickly realized that X-rays could produce still images, called x-rays, as well as moving images. The object of interest was placed between an X-ray beam and a fluorescent screen. Röntgen had been experimenting with cathode rays and Crookes tubes when he first saw the glow on a screen coated with barium platinocyanide.
It took a few weeks of experimentation to grasp clear images on a photographic plate. The first X-ray image of him was that of his wife’s handwhich clearly showed the bones and a ring.
Viewing a moving image was easier: one only had to look directly at the fluorescent screen. thomas edisonone of the first enthusiasts of X-rays, coined the term fluoroscopy for this new technique, which was developed simultaneously in February 1896 in Italy and the United States.
Less than a year after Röntgen’s discovery, William Mortondoctor, and Edwin W. Hammeran electrical engineer, were quick to publish “The X-Ray; or Photography of the Invisible and Its Value in Surgery” (X-rays or photography of the invisible and its value in surgery), which described the devices and techniques necessary to produce radiographs.
Among the many illustrations in the book was an x-ray of a woman’s foot inside a boot. Morton and Hammer’s book became popular among surgeons, physicians, and dentists eager to apply this .
The popular use of X-rays in… the shoe store!
The push from the military during World War I helped establish the fluoroscope for shoe fitting. In his esteemed 1914 publication “A Textbook of Military Hygiene and SanitationFor example, Frank Keefer included x-rays of booted feet to highlight what was appropriate and what was not.
Jacob J LoweBoston Physician, used fluoroscopy to examine the feet of wounded soldiers without having to remove their boots. When the war ended, Lowe adapted technology to shoe storesand applied for it in 1919, although it was not granted until 1927.
He named his device “Foot-O-Scope“, also know as Shoe-fitting fluoroscope, X-ray Shoe Fitter or Pedoscope. On the other side of the Atlantic, some English inventors applied for a British patent in 1924which was granted in 1926. Meanwhile, Matthew B. Adrian, inventor of the shoehornfiled a patent application in 1921, which was granted in 1927.
In a short time, 2 companies became the main producers of shoe fitting fluoroscopes: Pedoscope Co. in England and X-Ray Shoe Fitter Inc. in the United States.
The basic design included a large wooden cabinet with an X-ray tube at its base and a slot where patrons placed their shod feet. When the clerk flipped the switch to activate the X-ray stream, the client could view the image on a fluorescent screen, which showed the bones of the feet and the outline of the shoes. The devices used to have three eyepieces so that the clerk, the customer and a “curious” third party (father, spouse, brother) could see the image simultaneously.
The machines were advertised as a more “scientific” method to adjust the shoes. However, Duffin and Hayter argue that fluoroscopy for shoe fitting was first and foremost an elaborate marketing plan to sell them. If so, there is no doubt that it worked.
The mothers fondly remember their childhood trips to Wenton’s on Jersey City’s Bergen Avenue to shop for shoes. She was not only able to see her feet with the “fancy technology”, but they gave her a balloon and a lollipop. The vendors took advantage of the children. who asked their parents for new shoes.
Was it safe to use fluoroscopy to buy simple shoes?
Although the fluoroscope seemed to bring scientific rigor to the shoe fitting process, there was nothing medically necessary about it. Unregulated exposure to radiation put countless customers and dependents in risk of diseases such as dermatitis, cataracts and, with prolonged exposure, cancer.
The amount of radiation exposure depended on several factorssuch as the proximity of the person to the machine, the amount of shielding, and the exposure time. A typical test lasted 20 seconds and, of course, some customers put themselves through several tests before settling on the right pair.
The first machines were not regulated. In fact, it did not become the internationally accepted unit of radiation until 1928, and the first systematic study of the machines was not carried out until 20 years later.
That 1948 study of 43 machines in Detroit showed ranges from 16 to 75 Roentgens per minute. In 1946, the American Standards Association published a safety code for the industrial use of X-rays, which limited exposure to 0.1 R per day.
But some experts had warned early on of the dangers of X-rays. Edison was one of them. He was already an established inventor when Röntgen made his discovery, and for several years, Edison’s lab worked non-stop on X-ray experiments. That work came to a halt with the decline and eventual death of Clarence M. Dally.
Dally, Edison Lab Technicianperformed numerous tests with the fluoroscope, regularly exposing himself to radiation for hours. In 1900 he already had hand injuries. His hair began to fall out and his face wrinkled. In 1902 his left arm had to be amputated and the following year his right. died in 1904, at the age of 39, due to metastatic skin cancer. The New York Times called him “a martyr for science”; Edison famously stated: “Don’t talk to me about X-rays. They scare me“
Clarence Dally may have been the first American to die from radiation sickness, but in 1908 the American Roentgen Ray Society reported 47 deaths due to radiation. In 1915, the Roentgen Society of Great Britain published guidelines to protect workers from overexposure to radiation. These were incorporated into recommendations made in 1921 by the British Committee on Protection Against X-Rays and Radium, a group with a similar mission. Comparable guidelines were established in the United States in 1922.
For those concerned about radiation exposure, the fluoroscope with a shoe looked like a dangerous machine. Christina Jordan was the wife of Alfred Jordan, a pioneer in the detection of disease by radiography, and in 1925 she wrote a letter to The Times of London in which he denounced the dangerous levels of X-ray radiation to which store clerks were exposed.
Jordan noted that while a scientist who dies of radiation sickness is celebrated as “a martyr to science,” a “martyr to commerce” is in a different position.”
Charles H.Baber, a Regent Street merchant who claimed to be the first shoe salesman to use X-rays, responded with a letter the next day. He wrote that, having used the machine since 1921, he had not seen any harm to himself or his employees.
The Times also published a letter from J. Edward Seager of X-Rays Limited (as the manufacturer of the Pedoscope was then called) stating that the machine had been tested and certified by the National Physical Laboratory.
This fact, he wrote, “should be conclusive proof that there is no danger to either the assistants or the users of the pedoscope.”
And that, apparently, was it.. The shoe fitting fluoroscope flourished in the retail landscape with little oversight. In the early 1950s, there were an estimated 10,000 machines in operation in the United States, 3,000 in the United Kingdom, and 1,000 in Canada.
The decline of fluoroscopy machines was near
Nevertheless, After World War II and the dropping of the atomic bombs, Americans began to put aside their love for all that radiated. The shoe fluoroscope did not go unnoticed. As mentioned, the American Standards Association issued guidance on this technology in 1946, and reports published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and in the New England Journal of Medicine They also sounded the alarm.
States began to legislate that the machines could only be operated by licensed physicians, and in 1957 Pennsylvania outlawed them altogether. But as late as 1970, 17 states still allowed them.. Over time, some specimens became part of the museum collections; as the Oak Ridge Associated Universities Health Physics Historical Instrumentation Museum.
The shoe-fitting fluoroscope is no less than curious technology. It looked scientific… but it wasn’t. Its creators claimed that it was not dangerous, but it was. In the end, it turned out to be completely redundant: a competent salesperson could fit a shoe just as easily and with less fuss.
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