More Light

Most physicians would rather use a fluoroscope than X-ray photographs; it's the difference between watching a movie and a set of stills. A fluoroscope lets them watch the internal organs in action. But there are two difficulties: a doctor's eyes function poorly in the dim light needed to make the fluoroscopic image visible; the X-ray intensities now used can't be stepped up without endangering the patient. Last week Westinghouse Physicist John Wo Coltman, 32, who has been inventing gadgets since he was a boy, thought he had the answer: an X-ray intensifier, to give physicians a look as much as 500 times clearer than with ordinary fluoroscopes.

The intensifier, which Coltman calls a "telescope," works by a triple play, from X rays to light rays to electrons and back to light again; it amplifies the X rays only after they have passed through the body, so danger to the patient is not increased. A pilot model has worked in the laboratory; a full-scale apparatus is now being built. Most likely uses: studying the heart's action, detecting early cancer and tuberculosis.

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