Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-06-15
X-Rays, Discovered
SO Years Ago, Have
Many Applications
Newest Use Is to Reveal
Flaws in Steel Castings

Wilhelm Roentgen, discoverer of
X-rays, was born and exactly so
years ago, November 8, he made his
marvellous discovery of that wonder
full ray which has since proven a
boon to mankind and industry.
Roentgen called his discovery "X-
ray" because he was at a loss to
otherwise define this unknown guam
tity of great penetrating power. At
the time, newspapers everywhere
published stories, cartoons and even
poems about the new "wonder
, rays" The acclaim of scientists,
especially medical men who foresaw
how human suffering might be less
ened by the ministrations of these
new rays, made Roentgen famous
overnight, and honors were law
ishly thrust upon the truly mod
est professor.
Yet no one at that time dreamed
that within half a century Roent-
gems invention would be used by
American industry in this war to
build the toughest kind of fighting
equipment-ships, airplanes, guns,
tanks and even ammunition-to pull
verize German cities, including Mu-
mich where the professor once car
ried on his research.
Roentgen's discovery makes it
possible to detect flaws in ordnance
before it reaches the battlefront.
X-ray, producing shadow image
on photo-SenSitive film-called a ra-
diograph-reveals such faults in
metal as blow holes, tears, shrink
age cavities, inclusions and cracks;
faults which could not be detected
by the keenest eyes.
Perhaps second to Roentgen in
X-ray development is DR.. w. D.
Coolidge, who until month or two
ago when he retired, was director of
General Electric's research labora-
tory in Schenectady. The Coolidge
tube is world famous, used in hospi-
tails and by industries all over the
world.
The husky glamour boy of indus
trial photography today is the 1,000,-
900 volt shockproof unit. In Is min
utes it can inspect steel plates eight
inches thick. A few years ago radi-
UNI, at $l35,0 gram, was the only
source of the same kind of short
wave-length radiation. Now radia-
ton from this powerful X-ray ma
chine is equivalent to that produced
by 8l4 pounds of radium with the
i machine itself costing only a small
fraction of what radium would cost
even at the current rate of only
$4,000 a gram.
A year ago, General Electric an
nounced an even larger X-ray, one
of two million volts, which will take
pictures through eight inches of
steel in one minute Only two or
three of these have been made but
results have been such there is ev-
cry indication this bigger tube will
soon gain the popularity and use of
its one million volt predecessor. And
two million is not the limit for al
ready DR.. E. E. Charlton and his as
sociate w. F. Westendorf, have per-
fected a 100 million volt X-ray, but
particulars of this giant are shroud-
ed with secrecy until the war is
over.
X-ray still finds its widest use,
however, in the fields of medicine.
There is practically no region of
the body that is not subject to its
searching eye for detection of dis
ease or injury, and the physicians,
surgeons and dentists utilize the
X-ray for accurate diagnosis and
prognosis in a large number of
cases.
During the first 20 years after
Roentgen's discovery, x-ray work
was largely done in hospitals and was
relegated to all kinds of employees.
Today it is done by trained techni-
clans, under the supervision of a
radiologist, who is physician espe-
cially skilled in the Interpretation of
X-ray images of the body, and in
other medical uses of x-radiation.