As the centennial of the creation of the first X-ray approaches (Nov. 8), University of Michigan medical historian Joel D. Howell is available to discuss how this new technology revolutionized the practice of medicine, ushering in the era of high-tech medical care, and how the use of X-rays was in turn influenced by the surrounding culture.

” The social response to the X-ray machine was astonishing,” says Howell, director of the U-M Program in Society and Medicine. ” People lined up for one-hour sittings to view their own bones. Coin-operated machines let people glimpse the insides of their hands and feet. Wealthy young women had X-ray pictures taken of themselves with their betrothed.”

Howell, an associate professor of internal medicine, history and health services management and policy at the U-M, is the author of ” Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century,” published this year by Johns Hopkins University Press. Black-and-white glossies of Howell and line art of the attached graphics are available upon request.