They are used in medicine and surgery, to photograph the skeleton and all the internal organs of the human body, as an aid in diagnosis; also to destroy diseased tissue without the aid of surgery. Cancers and tumors of certain kinds and a number of skin diseases are said to be made to disappear by their use. When the apparatus is used, the subject is placed on a long table and the X-ray tube, in its lead glass shield container, is brought over the part of the body to which the rays are to be applied. The most up-to-date apparatus consists of a high-tension transformer and rectifier, driven by a rotary converter, which derives power from direct-current electric service and delivers alternating current to the high-tension transformer. [Illustration: MODERN X-RAY APPARATUS] How did the Term “Yankee” Originate? Although some people maintain that the word “Yankee” originated with the way white men interpreted the Indians’ name for the early settlers, most of those who have wondered about it have decided that it came to be used as a nickname for persons born in the United States, because of a farmer, named Jonathan Hastings and living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the eighteenth century, using it to describe some good, home-made cider of his making, as “Yankee cider.” The word was taken up by the students of Harvard University, and gradually spread throughout the whole country. Why do We Say “Kick the Bucket”? A great many years ago a man called Bolsover became crazed by some unhappy experiences and decided to kill himself by fastening a rope around his neck and hanging from a cross-beam overhead. In selecting a place to tie the rope high enough to accomplish his purpose he found that he would have to stand on something in order to reach it, and so he reached for the nearest thing, which happened to be a bucket; after the rope was firmly adjusted he kicked the bucket out from under his feet and his full weight hung suspended from the rope about his neck. The publicity given his act resulted in the adoption of the phrase “to kick the bucket” as meaning “to die,” and that is the explanation which most people who have tried to look up the origination of the term give as its first use. When does a Tortoise Move Quickly?