X Rays in Medicine

NOV 01, 1995

For almost a century, x rays have been used for medical imaging and for radiation therapy. Now these two clinical regimes are converging in the latest technology.

DOI: 10.1063/1.881440

William R. Hendee

One hundred years ago this month Wilhelm Röntgen, a professor of physics at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, discovered x rays while experimenting with cathode rays in a Crookes tube. Word of the discovery spread quickly, and by early 1896 the properties of x rays were under investigation in numerous physics laboratories in Europe and North America. By the turn of the century, physicians and physicists were exploiting the penetrating character of x rays to look inside the human body without cutting it open. They were also beginning to explore the therapeutic properties of x radiation.

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More about the Authors

William R. Hendee. Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.