7. Elizabeth Fleischman-Ascheim
Born Elizabeth Fleischman in California to a family of Austrian Jewish immigrants, Ascheim became a leader in the field of radiography in the late 19th century. With minimal training and funds borrowed from her father, Elizabeth purchased a fluoroscope and other x-ray equipment in 1896. The following year, 1897, she opened an x-ray laboratory in San Francisco. She x-rayed patients sent to her by local physicians. During the Spanish-American War she provided x-ray services to the US Army and Navy, receiving patients wounded or injured in the Pacific. To calm patients frightened of the x-ray tubes and the process they underwent, Elizabeth often x-rayed her own hands, demonstrating the procedure was painless.
Despite being neither college educated nor a physician, Elizabeth became nationally known within the medical community, and a member of the Roentgen Society. In 1903 Elizabeth noticed irritation on her hands, a form of dermatitis, which she attributed to the chemicals used when developing the photographs. When her doctors identified the dermatitis as caused by the x-rays, she began to study the use of various means of shielding x-ray operators, including lead and copper. By 1905 the dermatitis had become cancer, and Elizabeth’s right arm and collarbone were amputated. Nonetheless, the cancer returned, spread to the lungs and the x-ray pioneer died in August, 1905. Her tombstone reads, “I think I did some good in this world”.