History
Biomedical engineering has existed for centuries. 1895: Wilhelm Roentgen accidentally discovered that a cathode-ray tube could make a sheet of paper coated with barium platinocyanide glow, even when the tube and the paper were in separate rooms. Roentgen decided the tube must be emitting some kind of penetrating rays, which he called "X" rays. This set off a flurry of research into the tissue-penetrating and tissue-destroying properties of X-rays, a line of research that ultimately produced the modern array of medical imaging technologies and virtually eliminated the need for exploratory surgery. Major milestones 1791: Luigi Galvani invented the frog galvanoscope. 1851: Hermann von Helmholtz invented the ophthalmoscope. 1881: Samuel von Basch invented the blood pressure meter (also known as sphygmomanometer). 1895: Conrad Roentgen (Germany) discovered the X-ray using gas discharged tube...