The pages of photomedicine’s history: the diagnostic transillumination techniques in 1860-1880-ies.

Abstract

Using the transillumination of tissues and organs in medical diagnosis became possible after the advent of compact and powerful electric light sources that could be inserted deep in the body cavities via natural openings. In such apparatus a platinum wire, heated white-hot by the current from the battery and protected by a thick-walled glass screen, were applied. The first device was invented by physician V.A.Milliot, sent to France from Russia, and demonstrated in August 1867 at I International medical Congress in Paris, and then on 1.02.1868 in St. Petersburg. Milliot, however, transilluminated only the tissues of animals and human cadavers.

27-28.01.1868 Professor of Kharkov University I.P.Lazarevich first demonstrated in his clinic diagnostic diaphanoscopy on live patients with gynecological pathologies and developmental defects. Applying transilluminator, similar to the Milliot’s one, I.P.Lazarevich in the few months, examined more than 60 patients.