The Teledactyl from 1925
Previously we have touched the amazing 1925 projections of a haptic telesurgery system (1925 February issue of Science and Invention magazine). Here are some more fascinating details from Hugo Gernsback:
"The Teledactyl (Tele, far; Dactyl, finger — from the Greek) is a future
instrument by which it will be possible for us to “feel at a distance.”
This idea is not at all impossible, for the instrument can be built
today with means available right now. It is simply the well known
telautograph, translated into radio terms, with additional refinements.
The doctor of the future, by means of this instrument, will be able to
feel his patient, as it were, at a distance….The doctor manipulates his
controls, which are then manipulated at the patient’s room in exactly
the same manner. The doctor sees what is going on in the patient’s room
by means of a television screen.
Here we see the doctor of the future at work, feeling the distant
patient’s arm. Every move that the doctor makes with the controls is
duplicated by radio at a distance. Whenever the patient’s teledactyl
meets with resistance, the doctor’s distant controls meet with the same
resistance. The distant controls are sensitive to sound and heat, all
important to future diagnosis.
The busy doctor, fifty years hence, will not be able to visit his
patients as he does now. It takes too much time, and he can only, at
best, see a limited number today. Whereas the services of a really big
doctor are so important that he should never have to leave his office;
on the other hand, his patients cannot always come to him. This is where
the teledactyl and diagnosis by radio comes in."
Source: Smithsonian Magazine
Comments