X Rays in 1896

Abstract

On November 8, 1895, X rays were discovered. On December 28, 1895, Rontgen handed his famous paper announcing his discovery of these rays to the President of the Wurzburg Physico-Medical Society for publication in its journal. Incidentally, he formally read this paper at a meeting of the Society on January 23, 1896. Rontgen's discovery was no accident. A trained investigator, he was following up the work of Lenard on the radiations in high-vacuum tubes, saw something happen which was unusual, made investigations as to the cause of this, and discovered X rays. Before anything had appeared in any paper in England about the discovery, one Sunday morning when assisting my friend, the late Sir Robert Jones, at his free Sunday clinic at 11 Nelson Street, he called me to listen to a letter which a German lady, a Mrs. Wimpfheimer, had just received from a relation in Germany. This letter described the great discovery. I regret to say that we both of us laughed at it, and considered it to be just one more “tale fr...