ic stamped lettering on the cover of the box,
which was faintly perceptible.
"But Professor Neusser has already announced that the photographing of
the various organs is possible."
"We shall see what we shall see," he said. "We have the start now; the
development will follow in time."
"You know the apparatus for introducing the electric light into the
stomach?"
"Yes."
"Do you think that this electric light will become a vacuum tube for
photographing, from the stomach, any part of the abdomen or thorax?"
The idea of swallowing a Crookes tube, and sending a high frequency
current down into one's stomach, seemed to him exceedingly funny. "When
I have done it, I will tell you," he said, smiling, resolute in abiding
by results.
"There is much to do, and I am busy, very busy," he said in conclusion.
He extended his hand in farewell, his eyes already wandering toward his
work in the inside room. And his visitor promptly left him; the words,
"I am busy," said in all sincerity, seeming to describe in a single
phrase the essence of his character and the watchword of a very unusual
man.
Returning by way of Berlin, I called upon Herr Spies of the Urania,
whose photographs after the Roentgen method were the first made public,
and have been the best seen thus far. In speaking of the discovery he
said:
"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 v
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