X-RAYS IN MEDICINE

One hundred years ago this month Wilhelm Röntgen, a professor of physics at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg, discovered x rays while experimenting with cathode rays in a Crookes tube. Word of the discovery spread quickly, and by early 1896 the properties of x rays were under investigation in numerous physics laboratories in Europe and North America. By the turn of the century, physicians and physicists were exploiting the penetrating character of x rays to look inside the human body without cutting it open. They were also beginning to explore the therapeutic properties of x radiation. For almost a century, x rays have been used for medical imaging and for radiation therapy. Now these two clinical regimes are converging in the latest technology. © 1995, American Institute of Physics. All rights reserved.