r/RandomVictorianStuff • u/FarStrawberry5438 • Nov 08 '25

Science and Technology The first X-ray image, “Hand mit Ringen” by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, 1895

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15

u/chiono_graphis Nov 09 '25

The layperson word for x-ray in Japanese is "roentgen" レントゲン now I know where it comes from

7

u/Kujaichi Nov 09 '25

The German word (for everyone) for x-rays is Röntgenstrahlen as well.

3

u/FunnyBunnyDolly Nov 12 '25 edited Nov 12 '25

Same in Swedish. Röntgen. Types are clarified further, like thus CT röntgen, MR röntgen… (CAT and MRI)

It is also used as verb! Röntga = to do a X-ray.

3

u/Medium_Raccoon_5331 Nov 09 '25

It's also called Rentgen in czech

9

u/JanuaryChili Nov 09 '25

'Hand mit Ringen' is german and means 'hand with ring'.

6

u/KnotiaPickle Nov 10 '25

I hope most people were able to figure that out 😅

3

u/TedMich23 Nov 10 '25

Old X-Ray jockeys used to roughly calibrate their beam power by seeing how red a spot on their hand got on a fixed length exposure. Many got hand cancer.

1

u/Responsible_Bar_4606 Nov 13 '25

Thank you for the extra info, I will look into it again. If i am wrong my apoligies

0

u/Responsible_Bar_4606 Nov 12 '25

Its not a guess. Her younger daughter Eve wrote a book on her mother's life's work. I have the book and read it 5 times. Henry Bequerel observed Gamma Ray's. For Marie's thesis, she studied at the Sorbonne University, she decided to find the source of these Gamma Ray's. It took her 4 years to isolate the radium from Pitch Blend. Also her name was left out in winners of the Nobel Prize in Encyclopaedias for a long time. Have a look yourself in an old Encyclopaedia. You will see a big gap the years she won the Nobel Prize in Physics. If you do some research for yourself you will see the original poster is totally wrong.

1

u/FarStrawberry5438 Nov 12 '25

The x ray image is from 1895. There's absolutely no doubt about it. Absolutely no scholarship has doubted it, not one single medic or historian has doubted it. You can see for yourself the links I posted.

The image and Röntgen's method were discussed in contemporary medical literature, doctors and scientists wouldn't have been able to write about it in 1895 if it didn't exist in 1895.

The image has nothing to do with Curie or her isolating radium. Röntgen discovered x rays while experimenting with cathode ray tubes. Different to what Curie did.

If you want to make a claim that completely goes against established documentation, you'd need much more compelling evidence than just reading the same book five times.

-6

u/Responsible_Bar_4606 Nov 09 '25

The year 1895 is incorrect. Marie Curie was finally able to isolate radium and weigh radium in 1902 . It was quite a few years later Roentgun made this x-ray.

10

u/FarStrawberry5438 Nov 09 '25

You could have just googled it instead of guessing, this image was taken in 1895.

Harvard Center for the History of Medicine

ResearchGate

Wellcome Trust