In Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland, it was used for a variety of diseases, especially neuralgia, myalgia, arthritis and arthrosis, for which heat was considered beneficial (Pohlmann 1951). INTRODUCTION During the 1930s and 1940s, the application of ultrasound for medical therapeutic purposes was widespread. However, he apparently failed in the construction of the instrumentation that he envisioned. Pathologic structures also could be identified. In this manner he would be able to locate and estimate the shape of the heart, spleen, liver and stomach. The received signals were to be displayed on an oscilloscope wired to display Lissajous figures. His idea was as follows: a sound beam was transmitted through the body and picked up by a second quartz crystal working at the same frequency as the generator. The French physiotherapist Andre´ Denier (1946a, 1946b) proposed that ultrasound might be used to produce images of interior body structures. They also worked practically on the problem, but never published any results. In 1940, Gohr and Wedekind (1940) suggested the use of reflected ultrasound for the detection of tumours, exudates, abscesses and so on. Key Words: Echocardiography, History, Lund.ĭescribed by Sokoloff in 1935 (Sokoloff 1935a, 1935b) and solved by Sproule in England in 1944 (Wells 1969) and Firestone in the USA in 1945 (Firestone 1945). (E-mail: ) © 2004 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. The review ends with a mention of color Doppler echocardiography. The development of the pulsed Doppler method in the late 1960s opened up new opportunities for clinical innovation. Satomura had demonstrated the use of the ultrasonic Doppler effect to detect tissue motion in Osaka in the mid-1950s and the technique was soon afterwards applied in the heart, often in combination with M-mode recording. Then, the phased array sector scanner, which had been demonstrated in the late 1960s by Somer in Utrecht, was applied to cardiac studies from the mid-1970s onwards. It was, however, the demonstration by Bom in Rotterdam of real-time two-dimensional echocardiography using a linear transducer array that revolutionized and popularized the subject. Stop-action two-dimensional echocardiography enjoyed a brief vogue in the early 1970s. Transesophageal echocardiography followed, in the late 1960s. Two-dimensional echocardiography was first demonstrated in the late 1950s, with real-time mechanical systems and, in the early 1960s, with intracardiac probes. The discovery of contrast echocardiography in the late 1960s further validated the technique and extended the range of applications. The diffusion of echocardiography into clinical practice depended on the timely commercial availability of suitable equipment. The method then became established as a diagnostic tool and was taken up by investigators outside Lund, initially in China, Germany, Japan and the USA and, subsequently, world-wide. Subsequently, the various M-mode recordings were related to their anatomical origins. The first clinical applications of M-mode echocardiography were concerned with the assessment of the mitral valve from the shapes of the corresponding waveforms. Using an industrial ultrasonic flaw detector, they obtained time-varying echoes transcutaneously from within the heart. Historical Review THE HISTORY OF ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY INGE EDLER* and KJELL LINDSTRO¨ M†* *Department of Cardiology, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden and †Department of Electrical Measurements, Lund Institute of Technology, Lund, Sweden (Received 31 August 1995 in final form 13 February 1997)Ībstract-Following a brief review of the development of medical ultrasonics from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s, the collaboration between Edler and Hertz that began in Lund in 1953 is described.All rights reserved 0301-5629/04/$–see front matter 1565–1644, 2004 Copyright © 2004 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology Printed in the USA.