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The Beatles and the CT Scan
How sales from Beatles records helped change medical imaging
The Beatles left an undeniable mark on the 21st century. The Fab Four’s brief tenure as a rock band irreversibly changed the course of music, and over 60 years later, their influence continues to resonate throughout the world. Yet, one area in which you may not expect to see the Beatles’ influence is the emergency department at your local hospital. Yet, history shows that sales from Beatles records directly helped change the course of medical imaging.
In the early 1960s, as the Beatles became an international phenomenon, giving way to the British invasion that swept through the USA, hospitals in the US were only beginning to evolve away from some of the archaic practices of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. By this time, antibiotics were only a couple of decades old. Many people, including doctors, still touted smoking as a healthy practice. And emergency rooms were all but nonexistent. At that time, critically injured patients who came to a hospital were greeted in the general entryway to the hospital, and seen by whatever doctor was on call at the time. The places where patients were seen became known as emergency rooms, aptly named because they were seldom more than a simple room with a few staff members and some rudimentary equipment.
Injured patients seen in these emergency rooms might undergo X-ray imaging to diagnose a fracture or lung infection. These X-rays would expose patients to a hearty dose of radiation only to create a hazy grayscale image for doctors to puzzle over.
During this time, Beatles records were flying off shelves and fans were packing large stadiums to see them perform. The level of hysteria that surrounded the group would whip crowds into a literal frenzy. Fans screamed so loud at concerts that they could not hear the musicians play. Even members of the Beatles themselves admitted that they could not hear their music over the crowd noise. Beatle Mania was at a fever pitch, much to the delight of the Electric & Music Industries (EMI), which signed the Beatles to their label in 1962.
During this same time, an engineer named Godrey Hounsfield, who worked at EMI in their computers department, had seen his work in computer development start to…
