Norris Wolfenden: 100 years on

Richard Norris Wolfenden founded this journal in 1887 with Morell Mackenzie and edited it for a decade.^1, Reference Wolfenden² One hundred years after his death, it is timely to remember the intriguing contributions Wolfenden made to his varied fields of study. His life and work were described in three papers published in JLO in 1989.Reference Damkaer^3–Reference Booth⁵ They discuss his education at Cambridge University, practice in laryngology (including his involvement in the treatment of the Crown Prince of Germany with Mackenzie in 1887) and his subsequent retreat from medical practice, devoting his time instead to scientific voyages in his yacht in the North Atlantic.Reference Damkaer³ However, perhaps his most memorable and unique contribution to radiological history was his documentation of the marine creatures of Orkney with fellow laryngologist John Macintyre, using the recently discovered X-rays.

In the summer of 1896, Wolfenden dredged the seabed of Scapa Flow, collecting specimens of echinoderms including starfish and urchins. He made images of the specimens using Macintyre’s early X-ray equipment in Glasgow and published them in the first issue of the Archives of Skiagraphy Reference Wolfenden⁶ and then in a special supplement the following year.Reference Wolfenden⁷ He hoped nothing further than “to show that the new method of radiography may be made of considerable service in zoology, as an accessory to dissection and description”.Reference Wolfenden⁷

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the field of “X-ray conchology” did not gain traction,Reference Mould⁴ being limited compared to dissection. However, the images of starfish, crabs and lobsters are unique and beautiful. In an unsigned review in Nature, the merits of Wolfenden’s work were said, likely disingenuously, to serve a positive purpose “in the awakening of the mind of the physicist to the fact that animals exist and have a form and symmetry capable of scientific treatment”.⁸

John Macintyre pioneered the creation of moving X-ray images, publishing his work on the motion of a frog’s leg in the same inaugural issue of the Archives of Skiagraphy.Reference Macintyre⁹ In his thorough and engaging review, Damkaer inaccurately credits the development of cineradiology to Wolfenden,Reference Damkaer³ likely due to the adjacent publication of Macintyre’s and Wolfenden’s work in the same issue. Macintyre himself went on to become a co-proprietor and editor of JLO.Reference Dundas-Grant¹⁰ In Figure 8 of the same paper, the author suggests that Macintyre appears as the President of the British Laryngological Association in an 1894 photograph alongside Wolfenden and Macintyre’s wife Agnes.Reference Damkaer³ However, given the apparent advanced years of the sitters and dissimilarity to other contemporary images, it is highly unlikely that the photograph features John and Agnes Macintyre, who were, respectively, 37 and 38 years old at the time.

Wolfenden died in August 1926, leaving a varied and intriguing legacy, including his founding of this journal. In the century that has passed since, it is worth pausing to remember his many notable contributions, not least his brief and unique episode as the first X-ray conchologist.