The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-11-07
RoENrGEN RAYS ANNIVERSARY


 Sunday marks the nineteenth ami versary of one of the most valuable contributions of modern science to hu- manityA-the Roentgen or X-rays It was on Nov. 8, 1885, that Prof. Will liam Conrad Roentgen, a native of Holland, but a German by adoption. made his epochaI discovery, which has been so ihva1ua151e in surgery, and which has doubtless been the means of saving thousands of lives The rays are utilized in the military hos pitfalls of all the nations now engaged in war, and, by locating bullets and fragments Of shells. have enabled the surgeons to perform operations that have brought about a great dirlinlI- ton in the mortality rate among wounded soldiers.
 Prof, Baron Roentgen was born in the Netherlands and received his med icaI education in Switzerland, at the University of Zurich, but in the pres ent conflict his sympathies are all with Germany. He recently pre- sented to the German Red Cross the medal, containing $25O- worth of gold, ish Royal Society in recognition of his great discovery. Prof sRoent- gen declared that he did not care to keep the medal, in view of the t'per- hdious' attitude of England in the war In taking this stand. he adopt
 
 German scientists, who have renounc- ed all distinctions and degrees be- slowed upon them by British univer- sites and learned societies.
 Roentgen's discovery of a method for ttphotographing the unseen con- sisted of certain invisible non-refrac- tib1e rays ennanating from the surface of an electrically excited vacuum tube opposite the cathode electrode, having power to permeate objects impervious | fr TcS11 I1 l electrified bodies or surfaces exposed to them, of exciting f1uorescence in | huorescent salts, and of affecting | sensitized photographic plates in a 1 manner similar to light rays.
 Prof Roentgen's discovery follow 1 ed years of experiments, which he carried on while acting as professor l of physics at the Royal University of Wurzburg, Germany. On Nov 8, 1895, he succeeded in obtaining radio graphs of the bones in living human l hand, and also radiogra phed a. com | pass card enclosed in Q metallic box | Subsequent experiments by European l and American scientists have added much to the usefulness of the Roent- I<gen discovery.
 The x-rays pass very freely through the various tissues and fluids of the body, but are obstructed by the bones | which makes it possible to take a per | pect shadoW-picture, or radiograph of the skeleton of a living person or | animal.
 In practical results, the x-rays have been most useful in surgery, since ra- diographs may be taken. of fractured splintered or diseased bones, thus as l sisting greatly in diagnosis and treat: ment. Bullets, needles, fragments ol | shells or other foreign objects in the 1 body may be exactly located, whict renders the X-rays of high utility ir war. The subsequent invention O. I the microscope has made it possible to use the Roentgen rays not only | in surgical cases, but also in makins anatomical studies and in diagnosing internal diseases.
 Another use of the X-rays was dis covered in 1897 by Prof. Reginald A Fessenden, of the Western Universit, of Pennsylvania, who made test which proved that blow holes il