x-ray history

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, a German scientist, discovered x-ray on November 8, 1895 when he was working with cathode rays, light phenomena and electrical currents in highly evacuated glass tubes. That next month he presented a x-ray of his wife’s hand to the Wurzburg Physical-Medical Society. He discovered that x-rays (using the mathematical symbol “x” for the unknown quantity, he called his discovery x-ray) could be recorded on photographic film in order to make them permanent. By January 1896, x-rays were used in a hospital (Oden, 2004 and Lentle, 2003).