Rubin gynaecology test. Doctor with nurse and patient in a hospital, with the doctor carrying out a test on the female patient's fallopian tubes. This test, inflating the tubes and abdomen with a gas such as carbon dioxide, tests for infertility. Known as tubal insufflation or the Rubin test, it is named for US gynaecologist Isidor Clinton Rubin (1883-1958) who developed the test in 1919 and 1920. It was widely used in the mid-20th century, but fell out of use with the advance of laparoscopic techniques in the 1970s. Photographed at the infertility clinic at Long Island Jewish Hospital, New York, USA, on 7 December 1956.