410 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 91. 



interdependence of science and the healing 

 art ; and the first that I will take is per- 

 haps the most astonishing of all results of 

 purely physical inquiry— the discovery of 

 the Eontgen rays, so called after the man 

 who first clearly revealed them to the 

 world. Mysterious as they still are, there is 

 one of their properties which we can all ap- 

 preciate — their power of passing through 

 substances opaque to ordinary light. There 

 seems to be no relation whatever between 

 transparency in the common sense of the 

 term and penetrability to these emanations. 

 The glasses of a pair of spectacles may 

 arrest them while their wooden and leath- 

 ern case allows them to pass almost un- 

 checked. Yet they produce, whether di- 

 rectly or indirectly, the same effects as 

 light upon a photographic plate. As a 

 general rule, the denser any object is, the 

 greater obstacle does it oppose to the rays. 

 Hence, as bone is denser than flesh, if the 

 hand or other part of the body is placed 

 above the sensitive film enclosed in a case 

 of wood or other light material at a suitable 

 distance from the source of the rays, while 

 they pass with the utmost facilitj'^ through 

 the uncovered parts of the lid of the box 

 and powerfully affect the plate beneath, 

 they are arrested to a large extent by the 

 bones, so that the plate is little acted upon 

 in the parts opposite to them, while the 

 portions corresponding to the muscles and 

 other soft parts are influenced in an inter- 

 mediate degree. Thus a picture is ob- 

 tained in which the bones stand out in 

 sharp relief among the flesh, and anything 

 abnormal in their shape or position is 

 clearly displayed. 



I need hardly point out what important 

 aid this must give to the surgeon. As an 

 instance, I may mention a case which oc- 

 curred in the practice of Mr. Howard 

 Marsh. He was called to see a severe in- 

 jury of the elbow, in which the swelling 

 was so great as to make it impossible for 



him by ordinary means of examination to 

 decide whether he had to deal with a frac- 

 ture or a dislocation. If it were the latter, 

 a cure would be effected by the exercise of 

 violence, which would be not only useless, 

 but most injurious, if a bone was broken. 

 By the aid of the E.ontgen rays a photo- 

 graph was taken in which the bone of the 

 upper arm was clearly seen displaced for- 

 wards on those of the forearm. The diag- 

 nosis being thus established, Mr. Marsh 

 proceeded to reduce the dislocation; and 

 his success was proved by another photo- 

 graph which showed the bones in their 

 natural relative position. 



The common metals, such as lead, iron 

 and copper, being still denser than the os- 

 seous structures, these rays can show a bul- 

 let embedded in a bone or a needle lodged 

 about a joint. At the last conversazione of 

 the Eoyal Society a picture produced by 

 the new photography displayed with per- 

 fect distinctness through the bony frame- 

 work of the chest a halfpenny low down in 

 a boy's gullet. It had been there for six 

 months, causing uneasiness at the pit of the 

 stomach during swallowing; but whether 

 the coin really remained impacted, or, if so, 

 what was its position, was entirely uncer- 

 tain till the Eontgen rays revealed it. Dr. 

 Macintyre, of Glasgow, who was the pho- 

 tographer, informs me that when the pres- 

 ence of the halfpenny had been thus demon- 

 strated, the surgeon in charge of the case 

 made an attempt to extract it, and although 

 this was not successful in its immediate ob- 

 ject it had the eflect of dislodging the coin; 

 for a subsequent photograph by Dr. Mac- 

 intyre not only showed that it had disap- 

 peared from the gullet, but also, thanks to 

 the wonderful penetrating power which the 

 rays had acquired in his hands, proved that 

 it had not lodged further down in the ali- 

 mentary passage. The boy has since com- 

 pletely recovered. 



The Eontgen rays cause certain chemical 



