In Aberdeen, in nineteen eighty,
Professor John Mallard led a team,
With Jim Hutchison, who built machines,
But soft insides were hard for doctors to see,
So they built a giant magnet, ring by ring,
A tunnel where a person lies so still,
The magnet lines up water deep inside,
Then radio waves make it signal back.
The Aberdeen magnet,
Mallard's MRI machine,
It hums and knocks and listens,
To the water deep inside,
And draws a picture slice by slice,
The Aberdeen magnet.
Their first pictures came out blurry and grey,
So Bill Edelstein found a better way,
Then late in August, nineteen eighty,
A patient lay inside the humming ring,
He'd come down from Fraserburgh, by the sea,
The scan showed doctors what was wrong inside,
The world's first useful whole-body scan,
Had come from Aberdeen, in Scotland's north.
The Aberdeen magnet,
Mallard's MRI machine,
It hums and knocks and listens,
To the water deep inside,
And draws a picture slice by slice,
The Aberdeen magnet.
Their magnet then was very weak,
Today's are fifty times as strong,
Most hospitals now have one too,
To look inside, no X-rays used.
Today, you lie down on the bed,
And slide inside the magnet's ring,
It knocks and hums, you stay so still,
And doctors see you, slice by slice.
The Aberdeen magnet,
Mallard's MRI machine,
It hums and knocks and listens,
To the water deep inside,
And draws a picture slice by slice,
The Aberdeen magnet.
The Aberdeen magnet, thank you.
