Little Masterpieces of Science: Invention and Discovery
History
Little Masterpieces of Science: Invention and Discovery
Inventions
"I applied it, as soon as the penetration of flesh was apparent, to the
photograph of a man's hand. Something in it had pained him for years,
and the photograph at once exhibited a small foreign object, as you can
see;" and he exhibited a copy of the photograph in question. "The speck
there is a small piece of glass, which was immediately extracted, and
which, in all probability, would have otherwise remained in the man's
hand to the end of his days." All of which indicates that the needle
which has pursued its travels in so many persons, through so many years,
will be suppressed by the camera.
"My next object is to photograph the bones of the entire leg," continued
Herr Spies. "I anticipate no difficulty, though it requires some thought
in manipulation."
It will be seen that the Roentgen rays and their marvellous practical
possibilities are still in their infancy. The first successful
modification of the action of the rays so that the varying densities of
bodily organs will enable them to be photographed will bring all such
morbid growths as tumours and cancers into the photographic field, to
say nothing of vital organs which may be abnormally developed or
degenerate. How much this means to medical and surgical practice it
requires little imagination to conceive. Diagnosis, long a painfully
uncertain science, has received an unexpected and wonderful assistant;
and how greatly the world will benefit thereby, how much pain will be
saved, only the future can determine. In science a new door has been
opened where none was known to exist, and a side-light on phenomena has
appeared, of which the results may prove as penetrating and astonishing
as the Roentgen rays themselves. The most agreeable feature of the
discovery is the opportunity it gives for other hands to help; and the
work of these hands will add many new words to the dictionaries, many
new facts to science, and, in the years long ahead of us, fill many more
volumes than there are paragraphs in this brief and imperfect account.
THE WIRELESS TELEGRAPH
GEORGE ILES
[From "Flame, Electricity and the Camera," copyright by Doubleday,
Page & Co., New York.]
In a series of experiments interesting enough but barren of utility, the
water of a canal, river, or bay has often served as a conductor for the
telegraph. Among the electricians who have thus impressed water into
their service was Professor Morse. In 1842 he sent a few signals across
the channel from Castle Garden, New York, to Governor's Island, a
distance of a mile. With much better results, he sent messages, later in
the same year, from one side of the canal at Washington to the other, a
distance of eighty feet, employing large copper plates at each terminal.
The enormous current required to overcome the resistance of water has
barred this method from practical adoption.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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