TY - JOUR
AU - Nicholls, Mark
AB - View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide Millions upon millions of patients attend hospital every year for an X-ray. Few, if any of them, will be thinking of Wilhelm Röntgen as they undergo arguably the most routine of diagnostic procedures. They may be undergoing their X-ray for a huge range of issues…anything from confirming a broken wrist to checking the positioning of an implantable defibrillator. Röntgen, a physicist, was the inventor of the X-ray—or Röntgen ray—at the end of the 19th century and for his endeavours became the first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. Today, Röntgen is considered the father of diagnostic radiology but while he was initially uncertain of his discovery and of its implications, he was convinced he had discovered a new kind of ray. With no name for this new phenomenon, he opted for the mysterious and unknown, what we today would call the x-factor…hence the X-ray. View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide Whilst its use is diverse and widespread, in terms of cardiac care, it is often a starting point in the diagnosis of heart conditions. Patients suffering chest pain will typically get a chest X-ray to help determine whether there are heart problems; it can identify lung issues that stem from heart problems; highlight the size and outline of the heart that may indicate heart failure, pericardial effusion, or heart valve problems; identify calcium deposits and the positioning of pacemakers and defibrillators. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was born on 27 March 1845, at Lennep in the Lower Rhine Province of Germany, the only child of a cloth merchant. At the age of 3, the family moved to Apeldoorn in The Netherlands. While not outstanding academically as he grew up, he loved nature, the forests and open countryside but did display an aptitude for making mechanical contrivances. He was at one stage expelled from a technical school at Utrecht, wrongly accused of having produced a caricature of one of the teachers, but later went to the Federal Polytechnic Institute in Zurich to study mechanical engineering, graduating in 1869. His career flourished: in 1874, Röntgen he became a lecturer and later Professor of Physics at the University of Strasbourg; he was appointed to the chair of physics at the University of Giessen in 1879; obtained the physics chair at the University of Würzburg in 1888; and in 1900 at the University of Munich. His early published work dealt with the specific heats of gases and the thermal conductivity of crystals. He studied the electrical and other characteristics of quartz; the influence of pressure on the refractive indices of various fluids; the modification of the planes of polarized light by electromagnetic influences; and the variations in the functions of the temperature and the compressibility of water and other fluids. Yet, it was in 1895 that he made the most significant discovery of his life, while studying the phenomena accompanying the passage of an electric current through a gas of extremely low pressure. Building on work of previous scientists on cathode rays led him, however, to the discovery of a new and different kind of ray. It was on the evening of 8 November 1895, that he made the breakthrough. Working in a darkened room, he saw that a paper plate covered on one side with barium platinocyanide placed in the path of the rays became fluorescent. During subsequent experiments, he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate. His wife Anna Bertha Ludwig, who he married in 1872, was his first subject. When he immobilized her hand in the path of the rays over a photographic plate, he observed after development of the plate an image of his wife’s hand. Significantly, it showed the shadows thrown by the bones of her hand and that of a ring she was wearing, surrounded by the penumbra of the flesh. This was the first ‘röntgenogram’ ever taken. In further experiments, Röntgen showed that the new rays were produced by the impact of cathode rays on a material object. Given that the nature of these rays of produced and detected electromagnetic radiation was then unknown, they duly became X-rays. View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide At one point, while investigating the ability of various materials to stop the rays, Röntgen brought a piece of lead into position while a discharge was occurring. Röntgen thus saw the first radiographic image, his own flickering ghostly skeleton on the barium platinocyanide screen. During his experiments, he preferred to work alone with apparatus he built himself. The reason for the veil of secrecy he threw over his work was that he genuinely feared his professional reputation would be damaged if he was found to have made an error. Yet following his success and in recognition of his discovery, honours were showered upon him: streets were named after him, as were Prizes, Medals, and honorary doctorates. Röntgen’s original paper, ‘On A New Kind of Rays’, was published on 28 December 1895 and in 1901, he was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics, ‘in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him’. The work and achievements of Roentgen are showcased in the German Röntgen Museum, (https://roentgenmuseum.de/en/home-en/) located in his birthplace in Remscheid-Lennep. The house where he was born is a mere 200m away from the museum and is currently being renovated by the German Radiological Society. The German Röntgen Museum comprehensively documents the life, achievements, and impact of the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, as well as conveying the wide application for X-rays. X-ray Legacy—Saeed Mirsadraee View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide Dr Saeed Mirsadraee is a cardiothoracic radiologist at Royal Brompton Hospital and the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital with a specialist and research interest in cardiovascular computed tomography. He highlighted the importance of Röntgen’s work and the legacy of his discovery. ‘When Wilhelm Röntgen discovered the unknown (X) ray in 1895, he probably didn’t know the impact of his discovery in the diagnosis and management of diseases. It didn’t take much for people to recognize that the greatest practical importance of the rays was in medicine. In fact, the discovery has revolutionized the diagnosis and management of diseases. View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide ‘X-ray investigations have been in the forefront of the diagnosis of leading causes of death, ∼Tuberculosis∼ in 19th century, and ∼cardiovascular disorders and cancer∼ in the 21st century. Every day, many patients undergo X-ray based radiological examinations, including chest radiographs, coronary angiography, and computed tomography that provide invaluable information for the diagnosis and management of cardiovascular disorders’. Dr Mirsadraee reflected on how following Röntgen’s Nobel Prize in 1901, Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1979 for developing the diagnostic technique of X-ray computed tomography. ‘In his Prize Lecture, Sir Godfrey shows images of the heart with detectors synchronized to the heart-beat. Forty years later in 2019, cardiac CT plays a very important role in assessment of heart disorders’, he added. Another important discovery of Röntgen, continued Dr Mirsadraee, was that the X-rays can be stopped by lead. With the detrimental hazards of exposure to ionizing radiation becoming evident early in clinical practice the discovery had been fundamental to radiation protection. View largeDownload slide View largeDownload slide Conflict of interest: none declared. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Cardiology 2019. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model)
TI - Wilhelm C. Röntgen discoverer of X-rays
JF - European Heart Journal
DO - 10.1093/eurheartj/ehz278
DA - 2019-05-21
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/oxford-university-press/wilhelm-c-r-ntgen-discoverer-of-x-rays-0VaBVYU04K
SP - 1584
EP - 1586
VL - 40
IS - 20
DP - DeepDyve
ER -