The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-02-20
STILL NEW WONDERS.
Some Possibilities of Prof. Roentgen's
Great Discovery.
YOUR SKELETON WHILE YOU WAIT"
May Become a Common Sign-Experf.
ments by Prof. SwintOn in London.

A great deal continues to be printed in
London about the new Roentgen photog-
raphy operations, and the experiments
with it by grave scientists suggest the
idea-but children of larger growth are
tickled by the new toy-that all the ex.
pcriments and developments only show
that man has not begun to master the dis
covery, which still does as it wants, re-
fusing to be trained or perfected.
The pictures taken thus far, though
wonderful in the extreme, are only shadow
prints or sun pictures All leave out the
substance penetrated by the new rays and
show black shadows of impervious Objects
We read in the correspondence from the
continent that Belgium has already adopt
ed the new process, and that her govern
ment has ordered every hospital to be sup
piled with paraphernalia for aiding the
surgeons.
With these mysterious pictures bullets
and other foreign substances in the flesh
and bones of patients have already been
located successfully in innumerable in
stances in half the countries in what wa
used to consider ''slow old Europe
Perhaps the most interesting success
thus far attained is that recorded in tho
news from Vienna, where calcareous de-
posits in various parts of the human sys-
TEN have been marvelously exposed. Prac-
tically the Same thing has been shown in
the photograph of a mans hand obtained
by Campbell Swinton for one of the news
papers here. The hand Yves that of q
healthy man, but shows slight protuber-
anoes at the middle joints of two fingers,
whereupon medical men deduce the theory
that its owner is certain to be a victim Of
govt before many years.
Swinton is now deluged with letters
from medical men who wish to make use
of the new discovery One hopes to find a
AGh in
hopes to trace coin man has swallowed,
and still another wants the photographers
proof that a patients broken wrist has
been badly set.
All this leads The Chronicle to assert
that we shall soon be living in q "Palace
of TRUTH with all the discomforts set
forth in Gilbert play. "Your Skeleton
will be common street sign.
A Vienna man has already had his brain
photographed and has been unable to
sleep ever since. But much the best wit
ticism on tho all engrossing subject is
that of the city promoter who says he in
tends to have the invention adopted for
uso on tho camera and to sell machines at
a hundred guineas (S500) each, SO that
snap shots at fashionable men and women
in Regent street can be taken if the
pedestrians left their clothes at homo.
What the new invention cannot do is
almost as wonderful what it will do.
The light, or electric current rays, or
whatever it is, passes through many
Opaque substances, yet refuses to pass
through materials considered transparent.
Wood, carbon, aluminium, ebonite, paper,
papier mache, human flesh and leather
are transparent to this new current, and
copper is partially so, but nearly all metals
and bone are opaque.
Alfred Binet, the French scientist, gum
O%aJ hiOtrc CHI
of cardboard then photographed it and
got we'll defined picture of the metal fig
ures. He advances the astonishing theory
that what is possible to the new light may
DO made also possible to human eyes. He
thinks the eyes may acquire new condi-
ton under not impossible circumstances,
when of course such feats as reading dates
of coins and numbers on bank notes crum-
pied up in the human hand may be per-
formed without any trick at all.
The papers announce that NJ. Darsonval,
the French electrician, has made an as
founding communication to the Academy
of Sciences, of which he is a member. He
says that he has been informed by 6. Le-
bon that it is quite unnecessary to depend
on the unknown light of Crookes' tube.
Photographing through opaque bodies can
be done with ordinary light. A paraffin
lamp will do it.
M Lgbon asserts that be has taken pho
tographs in this manner for several years.
He proceeds as follows: Inside box with
rather chin sides he places a sensitived
plate bshind negative. In front of the
box he places an iron plate, and on the
other side of the plate lamp. After three
hours exposure the image is found. On
development this image is indistinct, but
if sheet of lead be placed behind the box
and folded over to touch the lion plate SO
as to form metallic shell, the reproduc-
ton Of the negative for the same length or
exposure is quite distinct.
NJ. Darsonval adds that this experiment
cannot be accounted for on any existing
theories. III. Lebon ascertained that the
image was not due to any phosphorescent
light which might have been stored up in
the negative. The experiment will not
succeed if heat rays only are used.
Professor Neuser of Vienna is preparing
to photograph the internal organs of a liv-
ing man. He hopes it will not be long
before his patient is saved a great deal Of
physical pain.
The London experiments thus far are
much simpler than the foreign, the papers
giving scientific explanations Of the meth
DDS of Roentgen not yet translated. 1t is
stated that Crookes' tube is obtainable at
any chemical apparatus shop, but is not
necessary. An ordinary electric light
bulb, from which the carbon flament has
been removed, will answer just as we'll.
Some authorities assert that the new
power is electricity. Others believe that
Roontgen has discovered now form of
energy which probably works with longi-
tudilsal and not transverse vibrations.
Whether this energy merely excites f1uores-
cence which causes the formation of an in
visible image capable of development, or
whether the new energy actually affects
the photograph film, is an open question.
Swinton, who leads in experiments in
London, uses very complex apparatus.
He takes q tube, fuses platinum wire to
each end and makes as near an approach
to vacuum as possible. He then con-
1,oct- ho Ic. alectric street.