Sunday, April 03, 2011

In the News - 1896 X-Ray Machine

1896 X-Ray Machine Fired Up Again
The pioneering device took 90-minute exposures and delivered a radiation dose 1,500 times greater than today's machines.



I bet most of you'ns thought the X-Ray Machine was invented by Sears Roebuck (above video) to measure proper shoe size, didn't you?  I know I did.  Actually, we're both sort of right.  That 1896 device is the same one Sears used.  It took 90 minutes, but there were no instructions that said that; kids just played with it that long before their moms came back from the linens floor and made them stop. 
Sears Shoe Flouroscope

4/03/2011 09:49:00 AM 7 Comments

"If the number of Islamic terror attacks continues at the current rate, candlelight vigils will soon be the number-one cause of global warming. "
Argus Hamilton


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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jones-Roberts Shoes in Lubbock,where Buster Brown's were sold had one of these. It's a wonder my feet haven't fallen off.
mary

4/3/11, 11:08 AM
Anonymous said...

Buster Brown shoes at GulfGate Shopping Center in Houston had them as well. Don't remember if they fit better or not.

4/3/11, 11:41 AM
Anonymous said...

The clothing store in my home town had one of these. It was called a Fluoroscope and I was told many a time to quit playing around on it. At the same time my dad had a uranium mine that we would fool around in from time to time and the gummint was setting off A-bombs a few miles upwind. Dad said that the dust in the gutter in front of his shop was a lot better grade than what he was mining. Maybe the Agent Orange I got later countered the ill effects.
Binky Nabob

4/3/11, 12:20 PM
clem said...

In Mumbai, they sweep the streets for gold dust and sell it. Imagine how much you could get for uranium.

4/3/11, 1:25 PM
Esteve said...

Maas Brothers department store, downtown Tampa, mid-fifties. I can still see the foot x-ray machine today in my near sixty year old mind. I never made the Buster Brown connection but that was the most popular brand for kids and Maas Brothers carried the full line. Just another "how did we survive?" story.

4/3/11, 1:33 PM
TimO said...

Columbus Ohio, early 60's... I remember something like that in a couple of the bigger shoe stores.
Then again we still had electric trolley busses until the mid-60s too...
It was a real cow-town in those days.

4/3/11, 8:41 PM
Anonymous said...

When I was kid living in Carroll County, MD you could find one of these at a shoe store in Westminister. That was in the late 50's.

Brigadier Major Mike

4/4/11, 7:41 AM

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