Seeing Through History: The Very First X-Ray Patients (15 photos)

November 8, 1895, is recognized as the day physicist Professor Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays. Yet few people stop to consider that X-rays were not originally intended for scientific or medical purposes.





Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was working late in his laboratory at the Physical Institute of the University of Würzburg when he discovered X-rays. The very first image produced was of the hand of Röntgen's wife, Anna Bertha Ludwig. Once medicine realized the potential of X-rays, patients flooded hospitals to uncover all their ailments—even though early X-rays were quite dangerous. This breakthrough intersected with another booming invention of the late 19th century: photography. Here is what came of that collision.



Austria, 1910.





Chest X-ray, Paris, 1914.



One of the most advanced yet unusual devices at the Röntgen Institute: a state-of-the-art machine that "sees right through you." Frankfurt, Germany, 1929.



A man and a woman demonstrating medical equipment at an X-ray exhibition, 1928.



Film star Judith Allen posing with an X-ray of her back, 1930.



Demonstration of the latest X-ray machine, London, 1932.



A radiologist in early protective gear operating a cutting-edge X-ray unit. X-Ray Exhibition, Westminster, 1934.



In October 1937 in Rio de Janeiro, physics professor Moraes de Abreu developed chest fluorography to help detect lung diseases.



An X-ray technician with the US Army Medical Service during World War II, 1941–1945.



Doctors using an X-ray machine to guide a venous catheter into a patient's heart, 1947.



A little girl gets a chest X-ray at a clinic in Chelsea, 1949.



An X-ray machine on display at a dental association convention, California, 1953.



A patient suffering from persistent hiccups undergoes an X-ray, New York, 1955.



A rotating X-ray machine designed to take panoramic dental scans, 1960.