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Office of Environmental Management
1972

Computed axial tomography, commonly known as CAT scanning, was introduced. During a CAT scan, a large coil of x-ray tubes rotates around the patient's body, taking x-rays from all angles. A computer integrates all of these x-rays into a single, three-dimensional image on a television screen. The data can be saved on the computer.

A British engineer, Godfrey Hounsfield, and an American physicist, Allan Cormack, developed the CAT scan in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Both men received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1979.

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