Imaging: revealing the world within
BMJ 2007; 334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39052.527396.94 (Published 04 January 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;334:s12
- Adrian M K Thomas, consultant radiologist Adrian.Thomas@bromleyhospitals.nhs.uk1,
- John Pickstone, Wellcome research professor2
- 1Princess Royal University Hospital, Farnborough Common, Orpington, Kent BR6 8ND
- 2Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester, Oxford Rd, Manchester M13 9PL
On 8 November 1895 a German physicist, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen of Würzburg, was investigating the effects of passing electricity through rarefied gases. He was surprised to find that a distant fluorescent screen glowed in the dark. He was amazed when his wife placed her hand in front of the screen and a shadow image of the bones appeared. Röntgen communicated his discovery in a short manuscript entitled “Über eine neue Art von Strahlen” (“On a new kind of rays”), which he submitted to the Würzburg Physical Medical Society on 28 December 1895. He called the rays “X,” because their nature was unknown. In 1901 he was awarded the first Nobel prize for physics.
In the 19th century many researchers, stimulated in part by the work of Michael Faraday, had studied the passage of electricity through rarefied gases. In England in about 1880 William Crookes had developed an evacuated glass bulb …