Technology in the Hospital: Transforming Patient Care in the Early Twentieth Century (Revised)

How did use of medical technology such as urinalyses, blood tests, and x-ray machines change patient care in early-twentieth-century American hospitals? To what extent was the use of new machines influenced by the ideas of scientific medicine and to what extent by the availability of newly structured facilities and trained personnel? Drawing on the medical treatment of more than 2,000 people as reflected in patient records from Pennsylvania and New York hospitals, Joel D. Howell traces the ways in which medical technology was used, not merely how it was talked about. He utilizes a wide range of sources - including medical texts, popular literature, the visual arts, and the voices of both opponents and proponents of innovation - to explore how technology came to be such a central feature of medical care.