Godfrey Hounsfield’s CT scanner revealed a brain cyst in the first scan in 1971

Godfrey Hounsfield stands beside the EMI-Scanner in 1972 and modern CT scans provide much higher resolution images of the 'slices' of the brain than Hounsfield's original scan did in 1971. What if the contents of a sealed box could be revealed without ever opening it? For British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield, the question began with an unlikely fascination with Egyptian pyramids and cosmic rays. Years later, that same idea would lead to a machine capable of looking through the skull and revealing the soft tissue of the human brain. On October 1, 1971, his invention produced the first clinical CT image of a human brain, identifying a cyst that conventional X-rays could not clearly show, states an online report by Smithsonian Magazine.From radar to an extraordinary ideaAccording to the report, Hounsfield's career began far from medicine. During the Second World War, he worked with radar in the Royal Air Force, where his talent for electrical equipment quickly became apparent. After the war, he trained as an engineer and joined EMI, the British electronics company that would later become famous for its association with The Beatles. By the 1960s, Hounsfield had become a leading figure i...