Medicine: Gallbladder Seen

Two years ago, Drs. E. A. Graham, G. H. Gopher and W. H. Cole, all of the Washington University Medical School, St. Louis, began research to make possible visualization of the gallbladder by use of the Xray. They found that certain salts injected into the body are eliminated through the bile, which is stored in the gallbladder. They knew that iodin and bromin salts are opaque to the Roentgen ray. They secured a combination of these salts and obtained X-ray pictures of the abdomen in which the gallbladder, previously invisible because of soft tissue, appeared almost as clearly as did the bones themselves. Stones in the gallbladder were localized easily. At the meeting of the American Roentgen Ray Society in Washington, D. C., $600 of the $1,000 Leonard Prize for accomplishment in the X-ray field was awarded to these investigators. The remainder of the prize went to G. Failla of New York for his work on radon.