The History of Paediatric Radiology in Germany

By 1896, the year after the discovery of X-rays, 21 reports had already been published on their application in children. At that time Germany was one of the world’s leading countries in medicine, and by April 1896, a paediatrician in Munich, von Ranke, had reported on the ossification of the wrist in children. In July, Angerer, also in Munich, demonstrated rachitic changes. In Graz, Austria, Escherich was able to install X-ray equipment. In those days an X-ray exposure of the wrist took 10 min and so younger children had to be anaesthetized (chloroform). The Charite children’s clinic in Berlin under Heubner received its first X-ray laboratory in 1903. In 1912, also in Berlin, Reyher published the first German monograph: the skeleton alone covered 150 pages, all other organs only 19 pages. X-ray examination was used mainly in rickets, skeletal lues, malformations, and systemic skeletal diseases, after 1908 also for tuberculosis. Hamburger published a monograph on tuberculosis in 1912 and by 1923 three such books had appeared.