An Orchid and its X-ray

D'Arcy Little

Artwork part of ‘Structure’ (Issue 14)

The Artist

Dr. D’Arcy Little (he/him) is a radiologist, forensic radiologist, medical writer, medical editor, medicolegal consultant, and former family physician, living in Toronto, Canada. He loves science and takes joy in the intersection of art and science. He likes to write poetry in his spare time and is particularly fond of Haiku. D’Arcy’s wife, Catherine, is a teacher and children’s book author. She also writes poetry (https://www.consilience-journal.com/issue-13-relationship) and together they share a jammed poetry shelf in the library.


The Science

X-rays are one way in medicine and other fields that we can look at the internal structure of objects, including the human body. X-rays are also used in medicine to illustrate both health and disease.

The artwork is an x-ray of an orchid flower that I took with a faxitron at the Centre for Forensic Sciences in Toronto.  This is a small x-ray machine shaped like a microwave oven, most often used for samples from a mammogram biopsy, or in our specific case autopsy specimens.

X-rays images convey pictorially the density of objects. For example, the stem of the orchid, the crucial support of the flower, is the densest part and is white on X-ray, as the X-rays have been absorbed and do not pass through the stem to expose the X-ray film or digital receptor in this case. Similarly, in medical X-rays, the calcium in bones of the human skeletal system is the densest substance in the body and is also white on X-rays.  The softer tissues of the body and the flower are intermediate density and can be considered essentially the density of water.  More X-rays pass through these and give a darker, more exposed part of the image.

Plants and animals, including humans, are thought to have evolved from a common eukaryotic ancestor 2 billion years ago.  Evolution over the intervening millennia has acted on these organisms very differently to allow adaptation to their individual environments, however, many organisms are faced with similar challenges, such as maintaining an upright orientation despite gravity.  The similarities of the structure of the human skeletal system and the plant stem and their prominent density when seen on X-rays prompted me to create an X-ray of an orchid flower to complement my poem on X-rays in this issue of Consilience related to structure.

The art accompanies the poem, Electrons to Images. It gives an artful, concrete representation of the appearance of an orchid flower and an its X-ray appearance. X-rays respond to density. The stem is the densest part of the orchid flower and is white on X-ray, as the X-rays have been absorbed and do not pass through to expose the X-ray film (or digital receptor in this case). X-rays are one way in medicine and other fields that we can look at the internal structure of objects, including the human body.


Electrons to Images

Electrons fly across a vacuum tube…

Smash into a Tungsten anode.

X-rays are born,

with a fate to explore structures beyond.

Directed towards a human form…

scattered,

absorbed by calcium in bones,

transmitted by air in lungs,

checked by soft tissues and disease.

An image created by x-rays transmitted,

in black and white and shades of grey.

Read by another human form…

Sitting silently in the dark.

Diagnosing structure and function,

health and illness, 

life and death.

A radiologist



Copyright statement. This work is published under the CC BY-NC-SA license

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