Today's story is about the discovery of one of the most fascinating things in Medicine - the X Rays.
In the winter of the year of his 50th birthday, an year after his appointment to the leadership of the University of Wurzberg, Rector Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen noticed a barium platinocyanide screen flourescing in his laboratory as he generated cathode rays in a Crookes tube some distance away. 3 days before Christmas, he brought his wife to the lab and took an image of her hand. It revealed bones of her hand and a ring. On the 28th December, he delivered the news of his discovery to the Wurzberg Physico-Medical society. On 4th January the news was relayed to the Berlin Medical Society from where the world press picked it up. On the 13th January he was awarded the Prussian order of the crown. On the 16th January the New York Times announced the discovery as a "new form of photography capable of transforming medicine by revealing hidden foreign bodies"!
The public and the physicians were equally enthralled by the discovery. It shook the entire foundation of Physics and the Physicists had to change their views on what was till the believed to the gospel truth. The research on the 'cathode rays' continued. Meticulous research by a German scientist, Philip Leonard inspired Roentgen to see that the rays described by him traveled much farther than the cathode rays.
The Humor Magazine, Punch, gave a poem. I have reproduced a stanza here:
O, Roentgen, then the news is true,
And not a trick of idle rumor,
That bids us each beware of you,
And your grim and graveyard humor.
Though Roentgen himself produced only 3 papers in the field, others jumped in. The X rays were used to locate the bullets; find out breaks in the bones. Dr. Henry W Cattell an anatomist in Penisylvania used it to demonstrate Kidney Stones and 'cirrhotic livers'. In 1896, X rays were used to study human heart and brain(?). Vietnamese mummies and a new born rabbit were x rayed in 1896. In the same year, a German doctor used X rays to diagnose sarcoma of the tibia in a young boy. In 1897, hair loss and skin burns were identified as side effects. Roentgen now got interested in the physics of the X rays and was seriously interested in holding a position in theoretical physics a newly emerging German field.
Other industries also started using X rays - the Shoe industry made it a custom to study the bones of the feet to select the best suited shoes. The fashion industry wanted to satisfy the curiosity of the people by finding out the material used in the stilettos and what the model wore under her dress! The steel industry used it to test the strength of steel. Needless to say the maximum utility was found in the medical indications. Antonie Beclere of France in 1906 used x rays to study the stomach. Soon the x rays were used to treat cancer.
Now an interesting anecdote - 100 years after the discovery of X rays, a x ray machine was found at the Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands by Gerrit Kemerink. Using that machine he took an image of the hand. The process took him 90 minutes as againt 20 milliseconds for the new machines! The radiation dose needed was also 1500 times more explaining the frequent effects of hair loss and skin burns that used to happen!
In the winter of the year of his 50th birthday, an year after his appointment to the leadership of the University of Wurzberg, Rector Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen noticed a barium platinocyanide screen flourescing in his laboratory as he generated cathode rays in a Crookes tube some distance away. 3 days before Christmas, he brought his wife to the lab and took an image of her hand. It revealed bones of her hand and a ring. On the 28th December, he delivered the news of his discovery to the Wurzberg Physico-Medical society. On 4th January the news was relayed to the Berlin Medical Society from where the world press picked it up. On the 13th January he was awarded the Prussian order of the crown. On the 16th January the New York Times announced the discovery as a "new form of photography capable of transforming medicine by revealing hidden foreign bodies"!
The public and the physicians were equally enthralled by the discovery. It shook the entire foundation of Physics and the Physicists had to change their views on what was till the believed to the gospel truth. The research on the 'cathode rays' continued. Meticulous research by a German scientist, Philip Leonard inspired Roentgen to see that the rays described by him traveled much farther than the cathode rays.
The Humor Magazine, Punch, gave a poem. I have reproduced a stanza here:
O, Roentgen, then the news is true,
And not a trick of idle rumor,
That bids us each beware of you,
And your grim and graveyard humor.
Though Roentgen himself produced only 3 papers in the field, others jumped in. The X rays were used to locate the bullets; find out breaks in the bones. Dr. Henry W Cattell an anatomist in Penisylvania used it to demonstrate Kidney Stones and 'cirrhotic livers'. In 1896, X rays were used to study human heart and brain(?). Vietnamese mummies and a new born rabbit were x rayed in 1896. In the same year, a German doctor used X rays to diagnose sarcoma of the tibia in a young boy. In 1897, hair loss and skin burns were identified as side effects. Roentgen now got interested in the physics of the X rays and was seriously interested in holding a position in theoretical physics a newly emerging German field.
Other industries also started using X rays - the Shoe industry made it a custom to study the bones of the feet to select the best suited shoes. The fashion industry wanted to satisfy the curiosity of the people by finding out the material used in the stilettos and what the model wore under her dress! The steel industry used it to test the strength of steel. Needless to say the maximum utility was found in the medical indications. Antonie Beclere of France in 1906 used x rays to study the stomach. Soon the x rays were used to treat cancer.
Now an interesting anecdote - 100 years after the discovery of X rays, a x ray machine was found at the Maastricht University Medical Center in the Netherlands by Gerrit Kemerink. Using that machine he took an image of the hand. The process took him 90 minutes as againt 20 milliseconds for the new machines! The radiation dose needed was also 1500 times more explaining the frequent effects of hair loss and skin burns that used to happen!
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