Hands and feet are relatively resistant to other forms of radiation damage, such as carcinogenesis.Īlthough most of the dose was directed at the feet, a substantial amount would scatter or leak in all directions. A dose of 300 r can cause growth disturbance in a child, and 600 r can cause erythema in an adult. Ī customer might try several shoes in a day, or return several times in a year, and radiation dose effects may be cumulative. British Pedoscopes produced about ten times less radiation. Radiation surveys showed that American machines delivered an average of 13 roentgen (r) (roughly 0.13 sievert (Sv) of equivalent dose in modern units) to the customer's feet during a typical 20-second viewing, with one capable of delivering 116 r (~1 Sv) in 20 seconds. Large variations in dose were possible depending on the machine design, displacement of the shielding materials, and the duration and frequency of use. The first scientific evaluations of these machines in 1948 immediately sparked concern for radiation protection and electrical safety reasons, and found them ineffective at shoe fitting. However, there was not enough data to quantify the level of risk until atomic bomb survivors began to experience the long-term effects of radiation in the late 1940s. The long-term risks from chronic exposure to radiation began to emerge with Hermann Joseph Muller's 1927 paper showing genetic effects, and the incidence of bone cancer in radium dial painters of the same time period.
XRAY SHOES SKIN
The risk of radiation burns to extremities was known since Wilhelm Röntgen's 1895 experiment, but this was a short-term effect with early warning from reddening of the skin ( erythema). This device required lengthy decommissioning work before it could be safely put on public display due to the risk of radiation burn. The X-ray Shoe Fitter Corporation of Milwaukee and Pedoscope Company became the largest manufacturers of shoe-fitting fluoroscopes in the world.Īn Adrian Fluoroscope at the Dufferin County Museum, Ontario, Canada (2012). In the meantime, the British company Pedoscope filed a British patent application in 1924, granted in 1926, and claimed to have been building these machines since 1920. Clarence Karrer, the son of an X-ray equipment distributor, claims to have built the first unit in 1924 in Milwaukee, but had his idea stolen and patented by one of his father's employees. Syl Adrian claims that his brother, Matthew Adrian, invented and built the first machine in Milwaukee his name is featured in a 1922 advertisement for an X-ray shoe fitter. Lowe filed a US patent application in 1919, granted in 1927, and assigned it to the Adrian Company of Milwaukee for US$15,000. The most likely is Jacob Lowe, who demonstrated a modified medical device at shoe retailer conventions in 1920 in Boston and in 1921 in Milwaukee. There are multiple claims for the invention of the shoe-fitting fluoroscope. The bones of the feet were clearly visible, as was the outline of the shoe, including the stitching around the edges. Two other viewing portholes on either side enabled the parent and a sales assistant to observe the toes being wiggled to show how much room for the toes there was inside the shoe. They were widely used particularly when buying shoes for children, whose shoe size continually changed until adulthood.Ī shoe-fitting fluoroscope was a metal construction covered in finished wood, approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) high in the shape of short column, with a ledge with an opening through which the standing customer (adult or child) would put their feet and look through a viewing porthole at the top of the fluoroscope down at the X-ray view of the feet and shoes. In the second half of the 20th century, growing awareness of radiation hazards and increasingly stringent regulations forced their gradual phasing out. At the beginning of the 1930s, Bally was the first company to import pedoscopes into Switzerland from the UK. An example can be seen at the Science Museum, London. In the UK, they were known as Pedoscopes, after the company based in St. Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, also sold under the names X-ray Shoe Fitter, Pedoscope and Foot-o-scope, were X-ray fluoroscope machines installed in shoe stores from the 1920s until about the 1970s in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Germany and Switzerland. circa 1938 and used in a Washington, D.C., shoe store This machine was manufactured by Adrian Shoe Fitter, Inc. A shoe fluoroscope displayed at the US National Museum of Health and Medicine.
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