“Shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, also known as Pedoscopes, were X-ray fluoroscope machines installed in shoe stores from the 1920s until about the 1960s in the United States (by which time they were prohibited), and into the mid-1970s in the United Kingdom. In the UK, they were known as Pedoscopes, after the company based in St. Albans that manufactured them.”
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Thank you to the Science Museum
My history professor was just talking about these today. Now they have those Dr.Scholls machines that you stand on to determine what type of insoles you should use.
I can remember using one of these in Scotland in the 70s when I was a child and watching the bones in my feet move as I wiggled my toes.
No one believes me about it these days as it sounds crazy to expose people to radiation in such a cavalier manner.
I certainly remember these; there was on in Clark’s shoeshop in Stroud during the 1950s and the boringness of buying school shoes was alleviated by being able to use these things. No one thought of the harm radiation could do; their concern was the harm that ill-fitting shoes could do to growing feet with soft developing bones and so forth. I am grateful for the fact that my feet are in pretty good condition all things considered!
A recent episode of American Restoration on the History Channel featured one of these, which they restored to visibly new condition; they had to have a hazmat expert come and remove the irradiation components, of course. How bizarre — this was during the same era when physicians thought it was a neat idea to insert barium pellets into sinuses in the belief that it would help breathing problems. It’s amazing that we manage to survive!
I wonder how much radiation the shoe store salesmen were exposed to using these on so many customers, and how they are today?
Reminds me of the poor girls who put that radioactive paint on the faces of the wind up alarm clocks. It glowed so nice that they used it for lipstick and to paint their nails – (:
And in Billion Dollar Brain, Harry Palmer uses one to see inside a package he has to deliver.
Perhaps in forty years from now folks will look something on Retronaut that we happily expose ourselves to today and be as shocked and appalled as we are about the foot X-ray machine. Incidentally Harry Palmer was in good company: ‘Oor Wullie’ also used one to discover the whereabouts of the thrupenny bits in a Christmas pudding.