nference. Citing use of X radiation for forensic purposes within a very short time after Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895 more or less accidentally discovered, then refined the use of, fluorescent properties and effects of penetrating electromagnetic radiation on material objects, Brogdon describes radiography's wide "scope" of forensic applications, including diagnosing injury and determining cause of death, identification of bodies by dental and skeletal radiography, detecting abuse, investigation of gunshot wounds, and varieties of research. The use of dental x-rays and other dental records by forensic odontologists to identify victims' bodies recovered from air and other disasters is a familiar fixture of the modern culture.
This research on forensic radiology (radiography) will focus principally on its applications in medical jurisprudence and in various modalities of identification. Because as far as utilization of photographic processes is concerned they represent differences not of kind but of degree, such advanced "imaging" applications as ultrasound, CT (computerized tomography) scanning, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), or the use of radio waves to produce body images, and PET (positron emission tomography), or radiographs of body planes, are to be considered included in this forensic specialty. For what is conceptually important about the technology is not the precision with which it is named or the post-Roentgen reach and refinement of the technology itself but rather the practical manner, precision, and expertise with which it is applied to the project of diagnosis, identification, and understanding of imaged body or other material-object states and the full range of what those states may imply (or not) regarding appropriate medical, law-enforcement, or juridical praxis.
The most strikingly useful application of forensic radiography would appear to be in the confirmation of suspected physical abuse, principally of...