Look Inside Your Body (Look Inside Board Books): 1

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K A Joyce, Magnetic Appeal: MRI and the Myth of Transparency (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008) B Holtzmann-Kevles, Naked to the Bone: Medical Imaging in the Twentieth Century (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1997) However, PET is not used in medicine as often as other scanning techniques. PET techniques are complex and expensive, partly because they require enormous machines called cyclotrons to produce the radioactive tracers. In 1973, American chemist Paul Lauterbur (1929–2007) showed that NMR could produce images. British scientist Peter Mansfield (1933–2017) developed the mathematical processes that turned MRI into a useful rapid imaging technique. Lauterbur and Mansfield were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2003. The technology was impressive, particularly when they compared the size of Hilda’s uterus to a normal one. Gynaecologist Mr Stephen Quinn told her it would be wise to operate, though warned that if there was too much blood loss, he might have to remove her uterus entirely. Despite wanting to have children, Hilda recognised the importance of having the operation and Mr Quinn ended up removing an incredible 100 fibroids. Dr Dimitri Amiras, Trudi and Kate Garraway looking at a GFX representation of Trudi’s frozen shoulder (Photo: BBC/Remarkable TV)

Your Body (Usborne Beginners) : Turnbull, Stephanie, Larkum Your Body (Usborne Beginners) : Turnbull, Stephanie, Larkum

Dr Singh says: "So many of us tend to put off seeing our doctors, or simply deny that there’s anything wrong. Confronting our conditions, face-to-face with these incredible 3D images, means there’s nowhere to hide. And that can prompt patients to ask really difficult questions. Armed with more knowledge about their own bodies, I saw patients ask not just about their treatment and recovery, but also about life death and everything in between. The power of this technology is that it allows doctors and patients to talk about the stuff that really matters." In 1971, American scientist Raymond Damadian (1936–) discovered that MRI could be used for medical diagnosis. The radio signals emitted by cancer cells in a tumour were different from those in healthy cells and could be isolated by the MRI scanner. Damadian built the first whole-body MRI scanner in 1977, which he called the 'Indomitable'. I love how interactive it is and would never fail to get children excited. There are so many links you can make with science and would be a fantastic tool to use when introducing different processes and body parts in biology.

A CT (or CAT) scanner works by sending multiple X‑ray beams through the body at different angles. This is called tomography. Detectors record how the beams pass through sections of the body and the data is processed by a computer into cross-sectional images or virtual ‘slices’.

Look Inside Your Body (Look Inside Board Books): 1 : Louie

Because MRI can construct images of soft tissue, it's especially useful for diagnosing joint abnormalities, diseases of the liver and abdominal organs, and identifying tumours and uterine conditions such as fibroids. It is written in an informative, factual but informal way which is beneficial because it is adding to the children’s vocabulary as well as understanding things that are going on with their own bodies in a fun way. The writing is split up into small bubbles of writing and the children are able to work their way round the book in a creative way. Having the flaps in the book also add that element of excitement making it a fun learning tool.

Types of endoscopy

J Bronzino, V Smith and M Wade (eds), Medical technology and society: an interdisciplinary perspective (Massachusetts: MIT press 1990) CT scans provide more detailed images than X-ray machines. They can be used to detect bone and joint damage, including complex bone fractures. They can also reveal the precise location, size and shape of unusual occurrences such as tumours and blood clots, as well as internal injuries such as bleeding. This book is so great. It is so informative. My son loves to look and see what happens when you eat food (let’s be real – he loves to see the poop)! It has over 100 flaps (including flaps in flaps)! It shows how your muscles work and how your brain processes what you see. I highly recommend this book.” Other Usborne Books & More titles in the Series include:

Visualising the body | Science Museum

Yet I was left with more questions than answers. Are these methods used in real-life diagnosis? If not, why not? Why had these women been allowed to live in such pain for so long? More interrogation into the whys and wherefores would have been appreciated. W F Bynum and R Porter (eds), Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine (London: Routledge, 1993) The book is all about the human body from the digestive system to the skeleton and everything in between. There is a lot of detail but not too much that makes it difficult for the children to read. E Koch, ‘In the image of science?: Negotiating the development of diagnostic ultrasound in the cultures of surgery and radiology’, Technology and culture, 34 (1993), pp 858-893

Ultrasound scanners were not commonly used in hospitals until the 1970s. By the 1980s the technology had advanced enough to produce moving images in shades of grey, followed by 3D imaging not long after. Today ultrasound is widely used in surgical procedures and the field of gynaecology. Learn more about your body in this lift-the-flap Look Inside Your Body Usborne book. Flaps are layered under flaps to dive deeper into the body layers. An MRI scanner detects these weak signals. Because each of the body’s tissue types emits a different frequency of radio waves, the MRI scanner can distinguish between them and build an image based on the data it receives. An MRI scanner uses magnetic fields and radio waves to generate images of the inside of the body. Unlike X-rays, an MRI scan can visualise soft tissue such as the organs and blood vessels. It is a safe and painless procedure, leaving no lasting effect on the patient. In MRI, the patient is placed in a powerful magnetic field, which influences the hydrogen atoms in the body. Short bursts of radio waves are then used to alter the atomic alignment created by the magnetic field. When the radio waves are turned off, the atoms return to their alignment and in so doing emit a weak radio signal of their own.