A helping hand
The invention of the x-ray was a cure for the medical world, says Tech Sunday.
A lot of great discoveries were made while researching something else – it’s not accident, luck or serendipity. Rather, it’s the fireworks set alight by a curious mind.
Penicillin, for instance, was discovered when Sir Alexander Fleming was studying the bacteria that causes food poisoning. So was smallpox vaccine – when scientist Edward Jenner learned that people who had cowpox never contracted smallpox, he started experimenting – his discovery fuelled the eradication of smallpox.
The discovery of the x-ray was similarly made on the road to somewhere else. Wilhelm Roentgen, Professor of Physics in Worzburg, Bavaria, was experimenting with how electrical rays pass from an induction coil through a partially evacuated glass tube. Although the tube was covered in black paper, Roentgen noticed that a screen covered in fluorescent material was illuminated by the rays. He then saw that the projected image of his hand showed a contrast between bones and flesh.
By 1896, the head of the x-ray department at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Dr John Macintyre, had produced some remarkable x-rays, including the first x-ray of a kidney stone. X-rays were also being used to make a diagnosis. By WWI, x-rays were being used to treat soldiers, finding bone fractures and embedded bullets.
Thus, an extraordinary discovery was made – the internal structures of the body could be made visible without the need of surgery. Moreover, when it was recognised that frequent exposure to x-rays could be harmful, these same qualities started being used in fighting cancers and skin diseases.
Imagining life without the x-ray would be difficult. And its discovery is not only important for itself, but also for the medical breakthroughs that were made thanks to this technology.