Discoveries

Dr. John J. Wild, Pioneer of Diagnostic Ultrasound

Discoveries, Inventions and Achievements

Dr. Wild leads a life of continuous learning and discovery. He has a qualified eye for identifying problems and finding solutions to those problems that seem to him to be solvable. Dr. Wild has never been afraid to ask questions and to take the time to learn techniques in a variety of fields by working alongside experts in the field of interest. His problem-solving strategy combined with his zeal for learning have proven to be quite successful over the years.

1920s - 1930s

At the age of 14 after becoming frustrated with the uneven distribution of hot and cold water in his bathtub at home, young Wild developed an automatic bath-filling valve, which distributed hot and cold bath water evenly and filled the tub to a given level. Although Dr. Wild is the first to admit that this was not a groundbreaking discovery, he did receive his first patent for the device.

As Dr. Wild grew older, the types of problems he chose to tackle became more and more complex.

1930s - 1940s

In 1944, Dr. Wild was the first to grow Trichomonas vaginalis in pure culture, demonstrate its complex life cycle, which was unknown at the time, and clarify its method of infection in humans. This work provided proof that Trichomonas vaginalis was a venereal disease and documented its method of transmission.

While a surgeon during the war, Dr. Wild developed a new intestinal aspiration apparatus known as the "Wild Tube." The tube was developed in response to Wild's desire to relieve fatal bowel distension in bomb blast victims in London during WWII. Wild was troubled with the number of individuals that were left in British hospitals to die with bowel distension. He developed a method and equipment to relieve their condition, ultimately curing them. The "Wild Tube" was patented in England and reciprocally in the U.S. It was his work in the relief of bowel distension that caught the eye of researchers and surgeons at the University of Minnesota.

In order to provide alternative transportation during the gas shortage experienced in England during WWII, Dr. Wild built a producer gas plant to run on charcoal. He re-engineered an existing 1921 Harley Davidson motorcycle with side car, converting it to run on vapor-gas produced from charcoal. The producer plant was attached to the rear of the side car and continuously provided producer gas from charcoal. The system enabled Dr. Wild to use his Harley Davidson freely for transportation to and from hospital, since charcoal was plentiful during WWII. Dr. Wild's system confounded regulators, who later banned similar-type apparatuses for transportation. Fortunately, Dr. Wild was able to continue using his transportation system since he had it approved before the ban.

Applying the knowledge that he gained during WWII in London, Wild was able to assist surgeons at the University of Minnesota with the first cross-transfusion open heart operation by supplying them with the low haemolysis plastic tubes and pumps that he had developed for animal haemodialysis (1948).

Interested in continuing his work on bowel disease, Dr. Wild set out to measure the thickness of the bowel wall using an ultrasonic (15 Mhz) flight simulation trainer at the Wold Chamberlian Naval Air Base. In 1949, Dr. Wild made the groundbreaking discovery that sonic energy (pulse-echo ultrasound) was reflected as echoes from soft biological tissues. Realizing the significance of the discovery, Dr. Wild went on to pioneer a new field of medicine. Dr. Wild produced the first real-time ultrasonic images of the living human patient. He also discovered that pulse-echo ultrasound could be used to differentiate normal and cancerous tissues in the human stomach.

1950s - 1960s

In the 1950s, Dr. Wild and his team of researchers, which included John M. Reid, demonstrated the necessity and value of close inter-disciplinary clinical research and is credited with establishing the first inter-disciplinary clinical research team.

Note: John M. Reid was Dr. Wild's chief electrical engineer at the University of Minnesota and for the first few years during Dr. Wild's tenure at St. Barnabas Hospital. Reid worked closely with Dr. Wild to develop some of the early detection and diagnostic technology in the field of ultrasound.

In 1951, Dr. Wild published the first ultrasonic A-mode echographs of living intact breast tumors. That year he also used the A-mode technique to diagnose correctly the first living brain tumor. The diagnosis was later confirmed at operation.

In 1952, Dr. Wild produced the first 2-dimensional ultrasonic (B-mode) visual images in real time of the living arm and breast tumors. He also conducted the first clinical demonstration of two types of natural ultrasonic reflection -- positive and negative -- between solid breast tumors and surrounding normal tissue. The statistically valid, quantitative index of breast tumor comparison, or the A-mode area ratio, was also discovered in 1952 by Dr. Wild. The same year, he was the first to publish on the clinical use of pulse-echo ultrasound for histological diagnosis of breast tumors and demonstrate the first gray-scale, real-time sonic images of fresh kidney tissue.

In 1953, Dr. Wild demonstrated the first real-time images of a cyst in the living breast and was able to detect unsuspected tumors in the living breast. Using ultrasound, he was also able to detect (real-time B-mode) and diagnose (A-mode area ratio) the first malignant tumor (7mm) in an inflamed nipple. He also introduced the technique of natural breast compression during examination in the supine position in order to overcome range limitations at high frequency in 1953.

By 1955, Dr. Wild had used ultrasound for real-time ultrasonic imaging including cardiac tissue and blood kinetics; designed and constructed contact body scanners; demonstrated the harmlessness of pulse-echo ultrasound for clinical use; originated ultrasonic "tissue characterization" for differentiation between benign and malignant tumors; and invented non-imaging, numerical techniques for diagnosing and detecting tumors and other abnormal growths in the body.

In 1956, Dr. Wild went on to design and construct the first pulse-echo instruments for internal application used to demonstrate the histological anatomy of the living human colon (real-time, gray scale serial tomographs) followed by a demonstration, using a similar technique, of a cancerous colon in the living subject. During the same year, he also demonstrated a series of nipple-areola clinical pathologies including an unsuspected 1mm tumor in a nurse.

In 1958, he demonstrated that continuous ultrasonic energy at 1 megacycle could be safely transmitted through the beating heart to reveal doppler frequency shifts which correlated with the size of the heart. That year, he also demonstrated that continuous ultrasonic energy could be driven through the lungs in a state of partial expiration, indicating a possible useful clinical index of deterioration of lung elasticity. He also originated automatic instrumentation for producing automatic serial tomograms of the flattened breast in the prone position in 1958.

In 1963, Dr. Wild was able to demonstrate the feasibility of rapid ultrasonic clinical interrogation of the glandular breast with instantaneous readout based on comparative A-mode integral electronic processing (echometry).

1970s - 1980s

In 1988, Dr. Wild introduced and tested his patented intrinsically-collimated transducer, which is a multi-beam transducer that provides efficient energy transmission into and from cellular structures. The new ultrasonic transducer is designed to eliminate clouding backscatter. The intrinsically-collimated transducer exhibits far greater target sensitivity than leading transducers by augmenting returning sonic signals (including diffuse back-scatter), enabling the detection of abnormal cellular structures.

1990s - present