With news about the 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawer quarantined for drug-resistant TB, I saw this model of the X-ray bus at the London Science Museum today and wondered if we would ever see these roaming the streets again.

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Model mobile mass X-ray unit, c. 1951

Following rises in the incidence of tuberculosis (TB) during the Second World War, mass X-ray screening was introduced, first for troops and latterly for civilians, in ‘campaigns’ which continued for several decades. A visit of one such unit features in TB or not TB?, a 1970 episode of the situation comedy Steptoe and Son. In the industrialized world, millions were screened in these mobile units, and the so-called ‘X-ray buses’ became highly visible symbols of national crusades against tuberculosis.

The equipment produced miniature X-ray images on conventional 35mm, 70mm or 100mmfilm. Doctors used projectors to view the images, and recalled for a full size S-ray any patients whose lungs showed signs of the disease. Advertisements stressed that patients were not required to undress for the ‘X-ray inspector’, which may explain the improvised shirts supplied for some of the figures in this model.

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