Fun & Games With X-Rays

by

Lauren Roberts

You can see other people's bones with the naked eye . . . On the revolting indecency of this there is no need to dwell. Pall Mall Gazette, London, 1896

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen  (1845-1923), professor of physics and the director of the Physical Institute of the University of Würzburg, discovered x-rays in 1895. His discovery resulted from his earlier observations on the effects produced by cathode rays in free air. November 8, 1895 was a Friday evening. Röntgen was working alone in his laboratory in conditions that proved perfect for his discovery—darkness, a tube was covered with a light-proof cardboard jacket and a screen of fluorescent material laid on a table a few feet away from the apparatus. The resultant shimmering light was fluorescence coming from a previously unknown type of radiation.

Repeated experiments including the first image of its type ever taken—an image of his wife’s hand—proved that this was indeed a new development. He hurriedly wrote a “preliminary communication” (as he termed it) entitled “On a New Kind of Rays,” which was handed over to president of the Würzburg Physical and Medical Society on December 28. Because he did not yet know what the nature of the rays, he called them x-rays, though in Germany the name was and still is Röntgen-rays. The paper was printed immediately, and on January 23, 1896, an English translation appeared in Nature magazine. Within a few weeks word of the discovery had spread worldwide. It captured the popular as well as the scientific imagination. Editorials raged against it and cartoons and even poems satirized it. Punch, the popular British magazine, ran this on January 25, 1896:

O, Röntgen, then the news is true,
And not a trick of idle rumour,
That bids us each beware of you,
And of your grim and graveyard humour.
We do not want, like Dr. Swift,
To take our flesh off and to pose in
Our bones, or show each little rift
And joint for you to poke your nose in.
We only crave to contemplate
Each other’s usual full-dress photo;
Your worse than “altogether” state
Of portraiture we bar in toto!
The fondest swain would scarcely prize
A picture of his lady’s framework;
To gaze on this with yearning eyes
Would probably be voted tame work!
No, keep them for your epitaph,
these tombstone-souvenirs unpleasant;
Or go away and photograph
Mahatmas, spooks, and Mrs. B-s-nt!

And Punch wasn’t alone. In that single year, fifty books and pamphlets and almost one thousand papers were published on the subject. In May, a mere six months after Röntgen’s discovery, the first journal devoted solely to x-rays appeared. That same month, American Electrician began a three-part series on how to make “A Roentgen Ray Outfit.”

Röntgen’s fame soared, but he was by nature reticent, and the numerous honors and demands on him made him uncomfortable. He declined almost all the invitations he received to address scientific societies; he also refused an offer of nobility, though he did accept the first Nobel Prize for Physics in 1901. In 1900, he left Würzburg to take charge of the Physical Institute of the University of Munich where he resumed his earlier work on the physical properties of crystals until his retirement in 1920.

What is known about the damaging effects of x-rays today wasn’t even dreamed of by Röntgen. In the introduction to Health Physics: A Backward Glance, editors Ronald L. Kathern and Paul L. Ziemer noted that:

The widespread and unrestrained use of x-rays led to frank injury. Often, injuries were not attributed to x-ray exposure, in part because of the latent period before the onset of systems, and more so because there was simply no reason to suspect x-rays as the cause. Whatever some early experimenters may have thought about the skin effects they noted, others soon began to tie x-ray exposure and skin burns together.

However, other reports, describing skin effects similar to those associated with a bad sunburn, began to appear. So frequent and persistent were these reports that in late 1896, less than a year after Roentgen's announcement, Elihu Thomson, an American physicist, deliberately exposed the little finger of his left hand to an x-ray tube for several days, half an hour per day. The resultant effects—pain, swelling, stiffness, erythema and blistering—were convincing for Thomson and others, but not for all. Many prominent physicians still denied that x-rays were in any way harmful, although oft times the denial was tempered by a qualification that the effects noted were attributable to misuse of the x-ray.

Four years after their discovery, it was apparent to most of the medical and scientific community that frequent or intensive x-ray exposures could produce skin burns. The obvious answer was to reduce patients’ exposure time and frequency, and for experimenters to use enclosed tubes or distance to protect themselves. Even with that knowledge, safety implementation was sporadic. It wasn’t until the 1920s that specific protections were introduced: film badges, the adoption of a unit for determining radiation exposure which provided a quantifiable measurement and the establishment of various committees that produced scientifically-based radiation protection guides.

Interesting, the first of these guides was published in 1931 just about the time that shoe-fitting fluoroscopes came into wide use. Remember that the public was as enthralled by x-rays as the scientific and medical communities. John H. Lienhard of Engines of Our Ingenuity writes: “By the time I was a little boy, that’d turned into  stories about Superman’s X-ray eyes. Meanwhile, real  X-rays were cheap and accessible. I didn’t have X-ray  eyes, but I could X-ray my feet in new shoes at the department store.”

Lienhard is talking about the shoe-fitting fluoroscopes, probably the most commercially popular use of x-rays ever. Fluoroscopes, promoted as the best way to assure well-fitting footwear were a common sight in shoe stores during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. “Before putting the tube in the X-ray Machine,” noted the instructions to the shoe store owner, “place the machine in the most desirable location . . . We would suggest  that you center the machine in the store so that it will be equally accessible from any point. Of course, it should face the ladies’ and  children’s departments by virtue of the heavier sales in these departments.”

Now museum pieces, fluoroscopes consisted of a vertical wooden cabinet with an opening near the bottom for the feet and three viewing ports. This allowed the salesperson, parent and child to see the actual fit of the shoe around the feet. Unfortunately, the only protection between the feet of the person being fitted and the x-ray tube was an aluminum filter, so everyone was exposed to the radiation. But it was the salespeople who operated the fluoroscope repeatedly who were most at danger. By the time enthusiasm for them began to wan in the 1950s, there were an estimated 10,000 operating units in the United States alone.

According to Paul Frame of Oak Ridge Associated Universities’ Health Physics Historical Instrumentation Museum Collection, using them meant “you were effectively standing on  top of the x-ray tube,” not a good thing at any time but especially when “surveys at the time indicated that more than 60 percent of inspected machines exceeded the American Standards Association recommendation of 2 R to the feet per five second exposure.”

For the decades they were used, though, they were popular. Advertisements in magazines and newspapers as well as radio ads made them seem fun in addition to being helpful. Adrian, one of the manufacturers of fluoroscopes, also promoted ads that individual stores could use on their local radio stations:

Every parent will want to hear this important news! Now, at last, you can be certain that your children’s foot health  is not being jeopardized by improperly fitting shoes. STORE NAME is now  featuring the new ADRIAN Special Fluoroscopic Shoe Fitting machine that  gives you visual proof in a second that your children’s shoes fit. The ADRIAN Special Shoe Fitting machine has been awarded the famous PARENT’S MAGAZINE Seal of Commendation . . . a symbol of safety and quality to  millions of parents all over  America. If your children need new  shoes, don’t buy their shoes blindly. Come in today, let us show you the  new, scientific method of shoe fitting that careful parents prefer. STORE NAME invites all of you to visit us today for an interesting demonstration. We know that once you buy shoes that are scientifically fitted, you will shop at STORE NAME all of the time.

What have fluoroscopes to do with this x-ray card/bookmark? Directly, nothing. Indirectly, quite a lot. Old Reliable Coffee—a brand name about which I could find nothing—used the novelty appeal of x-rays to promote its name. The film is still in this card which I keep in double plastic, even though an experienced radiographic technician told me it is unlikely that it is dangerous. But think how many kids might have touched it, pulled it apart or even licked it in their childlike explorations. After all, x-rays were fun. You could see your bones in shoe stores, and now you could try it yourself! I am certain that Old Reliable Coffee may have intended it to be nothing more than educational entertainment for its adult customers. However, its release when radiation’s dangers were already sufficiently established to warrant protection regulations makes this one of the poorest marketing ideas I’ve ever seen. It’s a great bookmark, though.

Bookmark specifications: X-ray card
Dimensions: 4” x 2 1/2”
Material: Cardboard
Manufacturer: Old Reliable Coffee
Date: Unknown; 1940s-1950s
Acquired: eBay


Almost since her childhood days of Mother Goose, Lauren has been giving her opinion on books to anyone who will listen. That “talent” eventually took her out of magazine writing and into book reviewing in 2000 for an online review site where she cut her teeth (as well as a few authors). Stints as book editor for her local newspaper and contributing editor to Booklist and Bookmarks magazines has reinforced her belief that she has interesting things to say about books. Lauren shares her home with several significant others including three cats, nearly 1,300 bookmarks and approximately 1,200 books that, whether previously read or not, constitute her to-be-read stack. She is a member of the National Books Critics Circle (NBCC) as well as a longtime book design judge for Publishers Marketing Association’s Benjamin Franklin Awards. Contact Lauren.