Tom Brown

Thomas Graham Brown (10 April 1933 in Glasgow – 13 December 2019) was a Scottish engineer who was most notable for collaborating in the design of the first medical ultrasound machine along with the obstetrician and designer Ian Donald, a physician at the University of Glasgow and industrial designer and obstetrician John MacVicar.

Life In 1944, Brown enrolled at Allan Glen's School in Glasgow. In April 1951, after completing school and making an exploratory visit to the company to meet the chief engineer, he joined Kelvin & Hughes Ltd at the time a Glasgow manufacturer of scientific instruments as a technical apprentice. It was while working in the Western Infirmary installing a bulb in an operating theatre that Brown found out that Donald was experimenting with the flaw detector. Brown immediately looked up Donald in the Infirmary directory, phoned him and arranged a meeting. After Brown delivered his spiel to Halliday it was several months before Brown received a reply in the form of a memo which stated that £500 had been allocated by Smiths for the development and that Brown was able to spend half a day per week working with Donald. Although the images described in the paper were very crude, they were the first successful application of obstetric ultrasound.

In 1961 Kelvin Hughes merged with Smiths Industries. So to get around his own patents, Brown decided to develop a 3-D ultrasound machine and to formally study the problem. In 1970 Brown became a research fellow to study medical physics and three-dimensional imaging at the University of Edinburgh. In 1973 Brown was appointed as a team leader on the development of multiplanar 3D scanners at Sonicaid in Livingston, West Lothian.

Marriage In 1958, Brown married Geira née Stevens and had three daughters and six grandchildren. In 1996, Brown was awarded the Ian Donald Gold medal Award for Technical Merit. In 2007, he was awarded an honorary fellowship ad eundem of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. In 2014, Brown was inducted into the Scottish Engineering Hall of Fame