Roentgen was awarded the first Nobel Prize in physics in 1901 for his discovery. X-rays even found cosmetic uses in depilatory clinics set up in the US and France. Others found remarkable results in the treatment of surface lesions and skin problems while others investigated the possible bacterial action of the rays. In January 1896, only a few days after the announcement of Roentgen's work, a Chicago electrotherapist named Emil Grubbe irradiated a woman with a recurrent cancer of the breast, and by the end of the year, several researchers had noted the palliative effects of the rays on cancers. The same apparatus could generate X-rays. Since the early 19th century, electrotherapy had proved popular for the temporary relief of real and imagined pains. In addition to the diagnostic powers of X-rays, some experimentalists began applying the rays to treating disease. The first angiography, moving-picture X-rays, and military radiology, were performed in early 1896. Soon attempts were made to insert metal rods or inject radio-opaque substances to give clear pictures of organs and vessels, with mixed results. By February 1896, X-rays were finding their first clinical use in the US in Dartmouth, MA, when Edwin Brant Frost produced a plate of a patient's Colles fracture for his brother, a local doctor. Detectives touted the use of Roentgen devices in following unfaithful spouses, and lead underwear was manufactured to foil attempts at peeking with "X-ray glasses."Īs frivolous as such reactions may seem, the medical community quickly recognized the importance of Roentgen's discovery. Poems about X-rays appeared in popular journals, and the metaphorical use of the rays popped up in political cartoons, short stories, and advertising. The apparatus for producing X-rays was soon widely available, and studios opened to take "bone portraits," further fueling public interest and imagination. Thomas Edison was among those eager to perfect Roentgen's discovery, developing a handheld fluoroscope, although he failed to make a commercial "X-ray lamp" for domestic use. The news spread rapidly throughout the world. In January 1896 he made his first public presentation before the same society, following his lecture with a demonstration: he made a plate of the hand of an attending anatomist, who proposed the new discovery be named "Roentgen's Rays." On December 28, he submitted his first "provisional" communication, "On a New Kind of Rays," in the Proceedings of the Würzburg Physico-Medical Society. To test his observations and enhance his scientific data, Roentgen plunged into seven weeks of meticulous planned and executed experiments. One of his earliest photographic plates from his experiments was a film of his wife Bertha's hand, with her wedding ring clearly visible. Further experiments revealed that this new type of ray was capable of passing through most substances, including the soft tissues of the body, but left bones and metals visible. He determined the fluorescence was caused by invisible rays originating from the Crookes tube he was using to study cathode rays (later recognized as electrons), which penetrated the opaque black paper wrapped around the tube. On November 8, 1895, Roentgen noticed that when he shielded the tube with heavy black cardboard, the green fluorescent light caused a platinobarium screen nine feet at away to glow - too far away to be reacting to the cathode rays as he understood them. He was particularly interested in cathode rays and in assessing their range outside of charged tubes. His experiments at Würzburg focused on light phenomena and other emissions generated by discharging electrical current in so-called "Crookes tubes," glass bulbs with positive and negative electrodes, evacuated of air, which display a fluorescent glow when a high voltage current is passed through it. His lack of a diploma initially prevented him from obtaining a position at the University of Würzburg even after he received his doctorate, although he eventually was accepted. As a student in Holland, he was expelled from the Utrecht Technical School for a prank committed by another student. Roentgen's scientific career was one beset with difficulties. The X-ray emerged from the laboratory and into widespread use in a startlingly brief leap: within a year of Roentgen's announcement of his discovery, the application of X-rays to diagnosis and therapy was an established part of the medical profession. One of the earliest photographic plates from Roentgen's experiments was a film of his wife, Bertha's hand with a ring, produced on Friday, November 8, 1895.įew scientific breakthroughs have had as immediate an impact as Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen's discovery of X-rays, a momentous event that instantly revolutionized the fields of physics and medicine.
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