Medical ultrasound
A contrast medium for medical ultrasonography is a formulation of encapsulated gaseous microbubbles to increase echogenicity of blood, discovered by Dr Raymond Gramiak in 1968 and named contrast-enhanced ultrasound. This contrast medical imaging modality is clinically used throughout the world, in particular for echocardiography in the United States and for ultrasound radiology in Europe and Asia.
Echocardiography
Recognized as the “Father of Echocardiography”, the Swedish physician Inge Edler (1911-2001), a graduate of Lund University, was the first of his profession to apply ultrasonic pulse echo imaging in diagnosing cardiac disease, which the acoustical physicist Floyd Firestone had developed to detect defects in metal castings. In fact, Dr. Edler in 1953 produced the first echocardiographs using an industrial Firestone-Sperry Ultrasonic Reflectoscope. In developing echocardiography, Edler worked with the physicist Carl Hellmuth Hertz, the son of the Nobel laureate Gustav Hertz and grandnephew of Heinrich Rudolph Hertz.