Today’s #Fieldtripfriday takes us to the shoe fitting Fluoroscope in the Nuclear Medicine exhibition area of the Museum. The fluoroscope, invented by M.B. Adrian & Sons, was advertised as the “scientific” way for a shoe salesperson to see if a shoe fit. It contained a 50 kv X-ray tube and a push button timer that could be set from 5 to 45 seconds. When the child or adult placed their feet in the opening, the two viewing portholes enabled the salesperson to see the toes inside the shoe. The bones

Why Did Kids Put Their Feet in X-Ray Machines? The shoe-fitting fluoroscope, also known as a pedoscope, was an X-ray fluoroscope machine commonly installed in shoe stores from the 1920s until about the 1970s. It allowed customers, especially children, to view the bones of their feet inside shoes in real time, helping assess whether the shoes fit properly. Marketed as a modern, scientific tool for better shoe fitting, it became a popular feature in stores across Europe and North America. However,