X-ray, violet ray, and other rays

Chapter 2: INTRODUCTION

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About This Book

An accessible survey of X-rays, ultraviolet and related rays, their discovery and physical nature, and the wide range of practical and medical applications developed in the early 20th century. It describes radiographic techniques and instruments, therapeutic uses and reported curative claims, industrial and forensic applications such as flaw detection, metal analysis, art authentication and customs inspection, biological investigations including silk‑worm studies, and the health effects of sunlight and ultraviolet light. The text also recounts early accidents and injuries from radiation and offers historical anecdotes and illustrative cases to clarify methods and limitations.

INTRODUCTION

Highly important as are the phenomena of Radioactivity from the physical, chemical, medical, and philosophic points of view, they are hardly comparable in their relations to the affairs of our everyday life to the Roentgen or X-rays, and to the invisible violet or ultra-violet rays. The X-rays are utilized today in hundreds of practical ways, and are vastly important also in surgery, medicine, dentistry, and in biological investigations. It is perhaps not too much to say that the discovery of the so-called X-rays should be numbered among the two or three most important revelations of modern science. This will be clearly demonstrated in the course of the chapters to follow.