epoch-making results from laboratories, this discovery is one which, to
a very unusual degree, is within the grasp of the popular and
non-technical imagination. Among the other kinds of matter which these
rays penetrate with ease is human flesh. That a new photography has
suddenly arisen which can photograph the bones, and, before long, the
organs of the human body; that a light has been found which can
penetrate, so as to make a photographic record, through everything from
a purse or a pocket to the walls of a room or a house, is news which
cannot fail to startle everybody. That the eye of the physician or
surgeon, long baffled by the skin, and vainly seeking to penetrate the
unfortunate darkness of the human body, is now to be supplemented by a
camera, making all the parts of the human body as visible, in a way, as
the exterior, appears certainly to be a greater blessing to humanity
than even the Listerian antiseptic system of surgery; and its benefits
must inevitably be greater than those conferred by Lister, great as the
latter have been. Already, in the few weeks since Roentgen's
announcement, the results of surgical operations under the new system
are growing voluminous. In Berlin, not only new bone fractures are being
immediately photographed, but joined fractures, as well, in order to
examine the results of recent surgical work. In Vienna, imbedded bullets
are being photographed, instead of being probed for, and extracted with
comparative ease. In London, a wounded sailor, completely paralyzed,
whose injury was a mystery, has been saved by the photographing of an
object imbedded in the spine, which, upon extraction, proved to be a
small knife-blade. Operations for malformations, hitherto obscure, but
now clearly revealed by the new photography, are already becoming
common, and are being reported from all directions. Professor Czermark
of Graz has photographed the living skull, denuded of flesh and hair,
and has begun the adaptation of the new photography to brain study. The
relation of the new rays to thought rays is being eagerly discussed in
what may be called the non-exact circles and journals; and all that
numerous group of inquirers into the occult, the believers in
clairvoyance, spiritualism, telepathy, and kindred orders of alleged
phenomena, are confident of finding in the new force long-sought facts
in proof of their claims. Professor Neusser in Vienna has photographed
gallstones in the liver of one patient (the stone showing snow-white in
the negative), and a stone in the bladder of another patient. His
results so far induce him to announce that all the organs of the human
body can, and will, shortly, be photographed. Lannelongue of Paris has
exhibited to the Academy of Science photographs of bones showing
inherited tuberculosis which had not otherwise revealed itself. Berlin
has already formed a society of forty for the immediate prosecution of
researches into both the character of the new force and its
physiological possibilities. In the next few weeks these strange
announcements will be trebled or quadrupled, giving the best evidence
from all quarters of the great future that awaits the Roentgen rays, and
the startling impetus to the universal search for knowledge that has
come at the close of the nineteenth century from the modest little
laboratory in the Pleicher Ring at Wuerzburg.
The Physical Institute, Professor Roentgen's particular domain, is a
modest building of two stories and basement, the upper story
constituting his private residence, and the remainder of the building
being given over to lecture rooms, laboratories, and their attendant
offices. At the door I was met by an old serving-man of the idolatrous
order, whose pain was apparent when I asked for "Professor" Roentgen, and
he gently corrected me with "Herr Doctor Roentgen." As it was evident,
however, that we referred to the same person, he conducted me along a
wide, bare hall, running the length of the building, with blackboards
and charts on the walls. At the end he showed me into a small room on
the right. This contained a large table desk, and a small table by the
window, covered by photographs, while the walls held rows of shelves
laden with laboratory and other records. An open door led into a
somewhat larger room, perhaps twenty feet by fifteen, and I found myself
gazing into a laboratory which was the scene of the discovery--a
laboratory which, though in all ways modest, is destined to be
enduringly historical.
There was a wide table shelf running along the farther side, in front of
the two windows, which were high, and gave plenty of light. In the
centre was a stove; on the left, a small cabinet whose shelves held the
small objects which the professor had been using. There was a table in
the left-hand corner; and another small table--the one on which living
bones were first photographed--was near the stove, and a Ruhmkorff coil
was on the right. The lesson of the laboratory was eloquent. Compared,
for instance, with the elaborate, expensive, and complete apparatus of,
say, the University of London, or of any of the great American
universities, it was bare and unassuming to a degree. It mutely said
that in the great march of science it is the genius of man, and not the
perfection of appliances, that breaks new ground in the great territory
of the unknown. It also caused one to wonder at and endeavour to imagine
the great things which are to be done through elaborate appliances with
the Roentgen rays--a field in which the United States, with its foremost
genius in invention, will very possibly, if not probably, take the
lead--when the discoverer himself had done so much with so little.
Already, in a few weeks, a skilled London operator, Mr. A. A. C.
Swinton, has reduced the necessary time of exposure for Roentgen
photographs from fifteen minutes to four. He used, however, a Tesla oil
coil, discharged by twelve half-gallon Leyden jars, with an alternating
current of twenty thousand volts' pressure. Here were no oil coils,
Leyden jars, or specially elaborate and expensive machines. There were
only a Ruhmkorff coil and Crookes (vacuum) tube and the man himself.
Professor Roentgen entered hurriedly, something like an amiable gust of
wind. He is a tall, slender, and loose-limbed man, whose whole
appearance bespeaks enthusiasm and energy. He wore a dark blue sack
suit, and his long, dark hair stood straight up from his forehead, as if
he were permanently electrified by his own enthusiasm. His voice is full
and deep, he speaks rapidly, and, altogether, he seems clearly a man
who, once upon the track of a mystery which appealed to him, would
pursue it with unremitting vigor. His eyes are kind, quick, and
penetrating; and there is no doubt that he much prefers gazing at a
Crookes tube to beholding a visitor, visitors at present robbing him of
much valued time. The meeting was by appointment, however, and his
greeting was cordial and hearty. In addition to his own language he
speaks French well and English scientifically, which is different from
speaking it popularly. These three tongues being more or less within the
equipment of his visitor, the conversation proceeded on an international
or polyglot basis, so to speak, varying at necessity's demand.
It transpired in the course of inquiry, that the professor is a married
man and fifty years of age, though his eyes have the enthusiasm of
twenty-five. He was born near Zurich, and educated there, and completed
his studies and took his degree at Utrecht. He has been at Wuerzburg
about seven years, and had made no discoveries which he considered of
great importance prior to the one under consideration. These details
were given under good-natured protest, he failing to understand why his
personality should interest the public. He declined to admire himself or
his results in any degree, and laughed at the idea of being famous. The
professor is too deeply interested in science to waste any time in
thinking about himself. His emperor had feasted, flattered, and
decorated him, and he was loyally grateful. It was evident, however,
that fame and applause had small attractions for him, compared to the
mysteries still hidden in the vacuum tubes of the other room.
"Now, then," said he, smiling, and with some impatience, when the
preliminary questions at which he chafed were over, "you have come to
see the invisible rays."
"Is the invisible visible?"
"Not to the eye; but its results are. Come in here."
[Illustration: BONES OF A HUMAN FOOT PHOTOGRAPHED THROUGH THE FLESH
From a photograph by A. A. C. Swinton, Victoria Street, London.
Exposure, fifty-five seconds]
He led the way to the other square room mentioned, and indicated the
induction coil with which his researches were made, an ordinary
Ruhmkorff coil, with a spark of from four to six inches, charged by a
current of twenty amperes. Two wires led from the coil, through an open
door, into a smaller room on the right. In this room was a small table
carrying a Crookes tube connected with the coil. The most striking
object in the room, however, was a huge and mysterious tin box about
seven feet high and four feet square. It stood on end, like a huge
packing case, its side being perhaps five inches from the Crookes tube.
The professor explained the mystery of the tin box, to the effect that
it was a device of his own for obtaining a portable dark-room. When he
began his investigations he used the whole room, as was shown by the
heavy blinds and curtains so arranged as to exclude the entrance of all
interfering light from the windows. In the side of the tin box, at the
point immediately against the tube, was a circular sheet of aluminum one
millimetre in thickness, and perhaps eighteen inches in diameter,
soldered to the surrounding tin. To study his rays the professor had
only to turn on the current, enter the box, close the door, and in
perfect darkness inspect only such light or light effects as he had a
right to consider his own, hiding his light, in fact, not under the
Biblical bushel, but in a more commodious box.
"Step inside," said he, opening the door, which was on the side of the
box farthest from the tube. I immediately did so, not altogether certain
whether my skeleton was to be photographed for general inspection, or my
secret thoughts held up to light on a glass plate. "You will find a
sheet of barium paper on the shelf," he added, and then went away to the
coil. The door was closed, and the interior of the box became black
darkness. The first thing I found was a wooden stool, on which I
resolved to sit. Then I found the shelf on the side next the tube, and
then the sheet of paper prepared with barium platinocyanide. I was thus
being shown the first phenomenon which attracted the discoverer's
attention and led to his discovery, namely, the passage of rays,
themselves wholly invisible, whose presence was only indicated by the
effect they produced on a piece of sensitized photographic paper.
A moment later, the black darkness was penetrated by the rapid snapping
sound of the high-pressure current in action, and I knew that the tube
outside was glowing. I held the sheet vertically on the shelf, perhaps
four inches from the plate. There was no change, however, and nothing
was visible.
"Do you see anything?" he called.
"No."
"The tension is not high enough;" and he proceeded to increase the
pressure by operating an apparatus of mercury in long vertical tubes
acted upon automatically by a weight lever which stood near the coil. In
a few moments the sound of the discharge again began, and then I made my
first acquaintance with the Roentgen rays.
The moment the current passed, the paper began to glow. A yellowish
green light spread all over its surface in clouds, waves and flashes.
The yellow-green luminescence, all the stranger and stronger in the
darkness, trembled, wavered, and floated over the paper, in rhythm with
the snapping of the discharge. Through the metal plate, the paper,
myself, and the tin box, the invisible rays were flying, with an effect
strange, interesting and uncanny. The metal plate seemed to offer no
appreciable resistance to the flying force, and the light was as rich
and full as if nothing lay between the paper and the tube.
"Put the book up," said the professor.
I felt upon the shelf, in the darkness, a heavy book, two inches in
thickness, and placed this against the plate. It made no difference. The
rays flew through the metal and the book as if neither had been there,
and the waves of light, rolling cloud-like over the paper, showed no
change in brightness. It was a clear, material illustration of the ease
with which paper and wood are penetrated. And then I laid book and paper
down, and put my eyes against the rays. All was blackness, and I neither
saw nor felt anything. The discharge was in full force, and the rays
were flying through my head, and, for all I knew, through the side of
the box behind me. But they were invisible and impalpable. They gave no
sensation whatever. Whatever the mysterious rays may be, they are not to
be seen, and are to be judged only by their works.
I was loath to leave this historical tin box, but time pressed. I
thanked the professor, who was happy in the reality of his discovery and
the music of his sparks. Then I said: "Where did you first photograph
living bones?"
"Here," he said, leading the way into the room where the coil stood. He
pointed to a table on which was another--the latter a small
short-legged wooden one with more the shape and size of a wooden seat.
It was two feet square and painted coal black. I viewed it with
interest. I would have bought it, for the little table on which light
was first sent through the human body will some day be a great
historical curiosity; but it was not for sale. A photograph of it would
have been a consolation, but for several reasons one was not to be had
at present. However, the historical table was there, and was duly
inspected.
"How did you take the first hand photograph?" I asked.
The professor went over to a shelf by the window, where lay a number of
prepared glass plates, closely wrapped in black paper. He put a Crookes
tube underneath the table, a few inches from the under side of its top.
Then he laid his hand flat on the top of the table, and placed the glass
plate loosely on his hand.
"You ought to have your portrait painted in that attitude," I suggested.
"No, that is nonsense," said he, smiling.
"Or be photographed." This suggestion was made with a deeply hidden
purpose.
The rays from the Roentgen eyes instantly penetrated the deeply hidden
purpose. "Oh, no," said he; "I can't let you make pictures of me. I am
too busy." Clearly the professor was entirely too modest to gratify the
wishes of the curious world.
"Now, Professor," said I, "will you tell me the history of the
discovery?"
"There is no history," he said. "I have been for a long time interested
in the problem of the cathode rays from a vacuum tube as studied by
Hertz and Lenard. I had followed their and other researches with great
interest, and determined, as soon as I had the time, to make some
researches of my own. This time I found at the close of last October. I
had been at work for some days when I discovered something new."
"What was the date?"
"The eighth of November."
"And what was the discovery?"
"I was working with a Crookes tube covered by a shield of black
cardboard. A piece of barium platinocyanide paper lay on the bench
there. I had been passing a current through the tube, and I noticed a
peculiar black line across the paper."
"What of that?"
"The effect was one which could only be produced, in ordinary parlance,
by the passage of light. No light could come from the tube, because the
shield which covered it was impervious to any light known, even that of
the electric arc."
"And what did you think?"
"I did not think; I investigated. I assumed that the effect must have
come from the tube, since its character indicated that it could come
from nowhere else. I tested it. In a few minutes there was no doubt
about it. Rays were coming from the tube which had a luminescent effect
upon the paper. I tried it successfully at greater and greater
distances, even at two metres. It seemed at first a new kind of
invisible light. It was clearly something new, something unrecorded."
"Is it light?"
"No."
"Is it electricity?"
"Not in any known form."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
And the discoverer of the X rays thus stated as calmly his ignorance of
their essence as has everybody else who has written on the phenomena
thus far.
"Having discovered the existence of a new kind of rays, I of course
began to investigate what they would do." He took up a series of
cabinet-sized photographs. "It soon appeared from tests that the rays
had penetrative powers to a degree hitherto unknown. They penetrated
paper, wood, and cloth with ease; and the thickness of the substance
made no perceptible difference, within reasonable limits." He showed
photographs of a box of laboratory weights of platinum, aluminum, and
brass, they and the brass hinges all having been photographed from a
closed box, without any indication of the box. Also a photograph of a
coil of fine wire, wound on a wooden spool, the wire having been
photographed, and the wood omitted. "The rays," he continued, "passed
through all the metals tested, with a facility varying, roughly
speaking, with the density of the metal. These phenomena I have
discussed carefully in my report to the Wuerzburg society, and you will
find all the technical results therein stated." He showed a photograph
of a small sheet of zinc. This was composed of smaller plates soldered
laterally with solders of different metallic proportions. The differing
lines of shadow, caused by the difference in the solders, were visible
evidence that a new means of detecting flaws and chemical variations in
metals had been found. A photograph of a compass showed the needle and
dial taken through the closed brass cover. The markings of the dial were
in red metallic paint, and thus interfered with the rays, and were
reproduced. "Since the rays had this great penetrative power, it seemed
natural that they should penetrate flesh, and so it proved in
photographing the hand, as I showed you."
A detailed discussion of the characteristics of his rays the professor
considered unprofitable and unnecessary. He believes, though, that these
mysterious radiations are not light, because their behaviour is
essentially different from that of light rays, even those light rays
which are themselves invisible. The Roentgen rays cannot be reflected by
reflecting surfaces, concentrated by lenses, or refracted or diffracted.
They produce photographic action on a sensitive film, but their action
is weak as yet, and herein lies the first important field of their
development. The professor's exposures were comparatively long--an
average of fifteen minutes in easily penetrable media, and half an hour
or more in photographing the bones of the hand. Concerning vacuum tubes,
he said that he preferred the Hittorf, because it had the most perfect
vacuum, the highest degree of air exhaustion being the consummation most
desirable. In answer to a question, "What of the future?" he said:
"I am not a prophet, and I am opposed to prophesying. I am pursuing my
investigations, and as fast as my results are verified I shall make them
public."
"Do you think the rays can be so modified as to photograph the organs of
the human body?"
In answer he took up the photograph of the box of weights. "Here are
already modifications," he said, indicating the various degrees of
shadow produced by the aluminum, platinum, and brass weights, the brass
hinges, and even the metallic stamped lettering on the cover of the box,
which was faintly perceptible.
"But Professor Neusser has already announced that the photographing of
the various organs is possible."
"We shall see what we shall see," he said. "We have the start now; the
development will follow in time."
"You know the apparatus for introducing the electric light into the
stomach?"
"Yes."
"Do you think that this electric light will become a vacuum tube for
photographing, from the stomach, any part of the abdomen or thorax?"
The idea of swallowing a Crookes tube, and sending a high frequency
current down into one's stomach, seemed to him exceedingly funny. "When
I have done it, I will tell you," he said, smiling, resolute in abiding
by results.
"There is much to do, and I am busy, very busy," he said in conclusion.
He extended his hand in farewell, his eyes already wandering toward his
work in the inside room. And his visitor promptly left him; the words,
"I am busy," said in all sincerity, seeming to describe in a single
phrase the essence of his character and the watchword of a very unusual
man.
Returning by way of Berlin, I called upon Herr Spies of the Urania,
whose photographs after the Roentgen method were the first made public,
and have been the best seen thus far. In speaking of the discovery he
said:
"I applied it, as soon as the penetration of flesh was apparent, to the
photograph of a man's hand. Something in it had pained him for years,
and the photograph at once exhibited a small foreign object, as you can
see;" and he exhibited a copy of the photograph in question. "The speck
there is a small piece of glass, which was immediately extracted, and
which, in all probability, would have otherwise remained in the man's
hand to the end of his days." All of which indicates that the needle
which has pursued its travels in so many persons, through so many years,
will be suppressed by the camera.
"My next object is to photograph the bones of the entire leg," continued
Herr Spies. "I anticipate no difficulty, though it requires some thought
in manipulation."
It will be seen that the Roentgen rays and their marvellous practical
possibilities are still in their infancy. The first successful
modification of the action of the rays so that the varying densities of
bodily organs will enable them to be photographed will bring all such
morbid growths as tumours and cancers into the photographic field, to
say nothing of vital organs which may be abnormally developed or
degenerate. How much this means to medical and surgical practice it
requires little imagination to conceive. Diagnosis, long a painfully
uncertain science, has received an unexpected and wonderful assistant;
and how greatly the world will benefit thereby, how much pain will be
saved, only the future can determine. In science a new door has been
opened where none was known to exist, and a side-light on phenomena has
appeared, of which the results may prove as penetrating and astonishing
as the Roentgen rays themselves. The most agreeable feature of the
discovery is the opportunity it gives for other hands to help; and the
work of these hands will add many new words to the dictionaries, many
new facts to science, and, in the years long ahead of us, fill many more
volumes than there are paragraphs in this brief and imperfect account.
THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH
GEORGE ILES
[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright by Doubleday,
Page & Co., New York.]
In a series of experiments interesting enough but barren of utility, the
water of a canal, river, or bay has often served as a conductor for the
telegraph. Among the electricians who have thus impressed water into
their service was Professor Morse. In 1842 he sent a few signals across
the channel from Castle Garden, New York, to Governor's Island, a
distance of a mile. With much better results, he sent messages, later in
the same year, from one side of the canal at Washington to the other, a
distance of eighty feet, employing large copper plates at each terminal.
The enormous current required to overcome the resistance of water has
barred this method from practical adoption.
We pass, therefore, to electrical communication as effected by
induction--the influence which one conductor exerts on another through
an intervening insulator. At the outset we shall do well to bear in mind
that magnetic phenomena, which are so closely akin to electrical, are
always inductive. To observe a common example of magnetic induction, we
have only to move a horseshoe magnet in the vicinity of a compass
needle, which will instantly sway about as if blown hither and thither
by a sharp draught of air. This action takes place if a slate, a pane of
glass, or a shingle is interposed between the needle and its perturber.
There is no known insulator for magnetism, and an induction of this kind
exerts itself perceptibly for many yards when large masses of iron are
polarised, so that the derangement of compasses at sea from moving iron
objects aboard ship, or from ferric ores underlying a sea-coast, is a
constant peril to the mariner.
Electrical conductors behave much like magnetic masses. A current
conveyed by a conductor induces a counter-current in all surrounding
bodies, and in a degree proportioned to their conductive power. This
effect is, of course, greatest upon the bodies nearest at hand, and we
have already remarked its serious retarding effect in ocean telegraphy.
When the original current is of high intensity, it can induce a
perceptible current in another wire at a distance of several miles. In
1842 Henry remarked that electric waves had this quality, but in that
early day of electrical interpretation the full significance of the fact
eluded him. In the top room of his house he produced a spark an inch
long, which induced currents in wires stretched in his cellar, through
two thick floors and two rooms which came between. Induction of this
sort causes the annoyance, familiar in single telephonic circuits, of
being obliged to overhear other subscribers, whose wires are often far
away from our own.