John Macintyre
John Macintyre (1858-1928)
1929 Obituary [1]
JOHN MACINTYRE, M.B., CM., LL.D., F.R.S.E., D.L., J.P., was born in Glasgow in 1858 and died on the 29th October, 1928.
In his early life he was trained as an electrician, but subsequently he decided to enter the medical profession and studied at the University of Glasgow.
After qualifying in 1882 at Glasgow he continued his studies at Vienna and, on his return to this country, took up the surgical side of his profession, finally specializing in affections of the throat and nose. Besides being assistant surgeon in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary and, later, surgeon for diseases of the throat and nose, owing to his knowledge of, and interest in, electricity he took charge of the electrical department of that institution, and up to the time of his death still held the appointment of consulting electrician.
In 1887 the department was on a very small scale; in 1896, however, just after Rontgen's discovery, an X-ray laboratory was installed, which was the first of its kind. The development of the work was rapid and in 1914 an entirely new department was equipped. X-rays formed the subject of his most prominent work and publications. He was the first to take an X-ray cinematograph film, and also one of the first to take stereoscopic X-ray photographs and to appreciate the importance of instantaneous radiographs in medicine. His method of taking instantaneous radiographs was by the blowing of a fuse in the primary circuit of the X-ray coil; later on, this was done by the electrolytic break of Wehnelt.
About 1904 he took a series of five radiographs of the heart by blowing five fuses quickly one after the other. The exact cycle of the heart could thus be demonstrated on the screen. Being a throat and nose surgeon the subject of illumination was always of particular interest to him, and he designed for introduction into the throat a small electric lamp fixed to the laryngoscope so that the light was local and not reflected. This was shown before the Medico-chirurgical Society in 1884.
In 1902 he attempted to produce violet rays by spraying upon an incandescent mantle solutions of the oxides of various metals. He always made a practice of testing without delay the newest discoveries, and he seemed to anticipate the possibilities of their usefulness. Thus, soon after beginning to use X-rays, he acquired in 1896 a considerable quantity of radium bromide with which to try its therapeutic effects, and placed it in aluminium tubes, inserting them into sarcomata and other tumours. There seemed to be a great future for the use of radium clinically, and he therefore took a very active part in the formation of the Radium Committee in Glasgow in 1913
He joined the Institution as a Member in 1900 and was also at one time president of the Rontgen Society of London.