organs of the human
body can, and will, shortly, be photographed. Lannelongue of Paris has
exhibited to the Academy of Science photographs of bones showing
inherited tuberculosis which had not otherwise revealed itself. Berlin
has already formed a society of forty for the immediate prosecution of
researches into both the character of the new force and its
physiological possibilities. In the next few weeks these strange
announcements will be trebled or quadrupled, giving the best evidence
from all quarters of the great future that awaits the Roentgen rays, and
the startling impetus to the universal search for knowledge that has
come at the close of the nineteenth century from the modest little
laboratory in the Pleicher Ring at Wuerzburg.
The Physical Institute, Professor Roentgen's particular domain, is a
modest building of two stories and basement, the upper story
constituting his private residence, and the remainder of the building
being given over to lecture rooms, laboratories, and their attendant
offices. At the door I was met by an old serving-man of the idolatrous
order, whose pain was apparent when I asked for "Professor" Roentgen, and
he gently corrected me with "Herr Doctor Roentgen." As it was evident,
however, that we referred to the same person, he conducted me along a
wide, bare hall, running the length of the building, with blackboards
and charts on the walls. At the end he showed me into a small room on
the right. This contained a large table desk, and a small table by the
window, covered by photographs, while the walls held rows of shelves
laden with laboratory and other records. An open door led into a
somewhat larger room, perhaps twenty feet by fifteen, and I found myself
gazing into a laboratory which was the scene of the discovery--a
laboratory which, though in all ways modest, is destined to be
enduringly historical.
There was a wide table shelf running along the farther side, in front of
the two windows, which were high, and gave plenty of light. In the
centre was a stove; on the left, a small cabinet whose shelves held the
small objects which the professor had been using. There was a table in
the left-hand corner; and another small table--the one on which living
bones were first photographed--was near the stove, and a Ruhmkorff coil
was on the right. The lesson of the laboratory was eloquent. Compared,
for instance, with the elaborate, expensive, and complete apparatus of,
say, the Universi
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