Seeing Through the Body.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 264, 13 May 1896, Page 2

Seeing Through the Body.

The task of passing Eontgen rays right through the human body has been performed by Dr Hall Edwards, of Birmingham, who, with an adult subject, has obtained photographs showing the vertebrse and the spinal chord in full detail. Of a hand containing a large amount of diseased bone, which had already been taken by Dr Hall Edwards, another Rontgen photograph has been taken with still more instructive results, among which is the discovery of what appears to be a clearly-defined abscess in one of the bones. A still more difficult case was that in which a needle had to be searched for in a patient's foot. A radiograph of front portion of the foot gave no trace of the needle. The patient, a youth aged sixteen, was then placed with his foot resting side ways on a covered photographic plate, and the Crooke's tube was placed above it. After a moderate exposure, to produce which the rays had to penetrate three inches of flesh and bone, the negative was developed, when the needle, to find which several attempts by ordinary surgical means had been made, was clearly seen. Dr Hall Edwards has also, befoj c the local postal authorities, successfully used X rays for detecting coins and other articles transmitted contrary to regulations. A sovereign was wrapped up in a newspaper several times folded, and a negative having been taken with a short exposure, its position was revealed with the greatest clearness. A volume of 900 odd pages, with thick covers, proved perfectly transparent to the X rays, and, with the eye applied to the cryptoscope, a sixpence placed between its leaves was found.