<P> After the French physicist Pierre Curie 's discovery of piezoelectricity in 1880 , ultrasonic waves could be deliberately generated for industry . Thereafter , in 1940 , the American acoustical physicist Floyd Firestone devised the first ultrasonic echo imaging device , the Supersonic Reflectoscope , to detect internal flaws in metal castings . In 1941 , the Austrian neurologist Karl Theo Dussik was in collaboration with his brother , Friedreich , a physicist , likely , the first person to ultrasonically echo image the human body , outlining thereby the ventricles of a human brain . Ultrasonic energy was first applied to the human body for medical purposes by Dr George Ludwig at the Naval Medical Research Institute , Bethesda , Maryland in the late 1940s . English - born physicist John Wild ( 1914 -- 2009 ) first used ultrasound to assess the thickness of bowel tissue as early as 1949 ; he has been described as the `` father of medical ultrasound '' . Subsequent advances in the field took place concurrently in several countries . But it was not until 1963 when Meyerdirk & Wright launched production of the first commercial hand - held articulated arm compound contact B - mode scanner that ultrasound became generally available for medical use . </P>
<P> After the French physicist Pierre Curie 's discovery of piezoelectricity in 1880 , ultrasonic waves could be deliberately generated for industry . Thereafter , in 1940 , the American acoustical physicist Floyd Firestone devised the first ultrasonic echo imaging device , the Supersonic Reflectoscope , to detect internal flaws in metal castings . In 1941 , the Austrian neurologist Karl Theo Dussik was in collaboration with his brother , Friedreich , a physicist , likely , the first person to ultrasonically echo image the human body , outlining thereby the ventricles of a human brain . Ultrasonic energy was first applied to the human body for medical purposes by Dr George Ludwig at the Naval Medical Research Institute , Bethesda , Maryland in the late 1940s . English - born physicist John Wild ( 1914 -- 2009 ) first used ultrasound to assess the thickness of bowel tissue as early as 1949 ; he has been described as the `` father of medical ultrasound '' . Subsequent advances in the field took place concurrently in several countries . But it was not until 1963 when Meyerdirk & Wright launched production of the first commercial hand - held articulated arm compound contact B - mode scanner that ultrasound became generally available for medical use . </P>
when was ultrasound first used for medical purposes
when was ultrasound first used for medical purposes
1941
1941