"Looking Radiant": Science, Photography and the X-ray Craze of 1896

Author(s): Sylvia Pamboukian

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Victorian Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2001), pp. 56-74
Published by: Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793468 .
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 "Looking Radiant": Science, Photography and theX-ray
Craze of 1896

Sylvia Pamboukian
were
Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in late 1895, and X-rays
in Britain as a new form of special effect
immediately popularized
photography. During the late nineteenth-century, special
effect pho
or different exposures were
tographs using, for example, microscopes
popular items, and visual gadgetry, including stereoscopes and kalei
had been a in theVictorian the
doscopes, mainstay parlour since
early part of the century, exploiting the popular fascination with

novelty and technology. As engineer A.A.C. Swinton observed, "new

discoveries and inventions multiply with increasing rapidity every
year" ("Photographing" 290). The Quarterly Review enthused that the
"familiar surface-photography has ... obtained as an ally a wonderful
art of too solid flesh' had
organic portraiture" and that the '"too
a at the
virtually resolved itself into dew magic touch of the R?ntgen
rays" ("Photography" 500). X-ray apparatus was relatively affordable
to and to construct.
buy fairly simple X-rays could be easily produced
at home, at photography at fairs and exhibitions, and
shops and
volunteers lined up to have their purses or hands X-rayed by the
"wonderful," "magic," and "organic" phenomenon.
In addition to its imagingabilities,theX-raywas initially
hailed for its
germicidal potential and for its curative properties. It figured largely
inmany popular narratives about spectacular or miraculous cures
of hitherto incurable conditions through modern medical technology
accounts became so one doctor
(Knight 11). These popular that
wrote to the BritishMedical Journal about the X-ray's hold
complaining
on the
public imagination:

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

A girl, aged 16, ran a long needle-like splinter of well-seasoned

pine into the sole of her left foot. The case did not come
under my care until a month after the accident. The parts
at that timewere extensively swollen and inflamed. I then
had three skiagraphs [X-rays] of the foot taken. These pho

tographs gave no indication of the site of the splinter, the

rays passing through thewood as readily as through the soft
tissues. By exploratory incision, I discovered and removed the
was about 2 V2 inches
splinter,which long, and although it
had entered at the ball of the great toe, itwas found imbedded
in themiddle thirdof the sole of the foot. The report of
this case in the local paper described the splinter as having
been exacdy located bymeans of the rays, and as having saved
an amputation. It ismuch to be
regretted thatmore care is
not exercised in reporting this class of news, more
especially
as such are to foster the false
publications likely impressions
about the possibilities of the new process, which are only too

prevalent. Itwas, of course, impossible to locate the splinter

means of the rays,wood
by being very transparent. (Deeping
1238)
the journal's chief correspondent on the
Sydney Rowland, X-ray,
comments that the incident is an of the "loose and
example irrespon
siblemanner inwhich the laypress is in thehabit of dealingwith
cases inwhich the rays have been applied to diagnosis" ("Report"
1238). This illuminates several aspects of the X-ray's recep
exchange
tion in the late Victorian on such
period. Since the press reported
a the
commonplace accident, technology itself clearly commanded
popular interest. In addition, the press's habitual exaggerations about
"this class of news" indicate that popular interest in the X-ray arose
as much from the as from the
X-ray's strange and wondrous qualities
technological achievement it represented. Finally, the doctor's anxiety
to distance himself from the press account, because it is "likely to
foster false impressions about the possibilities of the new process,"
hints at medicine's proprietary impulse toward the X-ray, although
the doctor obviously shared in the popular optimism when he tried
to a
X-ray splinter of wood.

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

Jonathan Crary notes that visual gadgets, including those originally

intended formedical use, had been popular entertainment since the
1820's. Crary describes visual gadgetry as "points of intersection
where philosophical, scientific, and aesthetic discourse overlap with
mechanical techniques, institutional requirements, and socioeconomic
forces" (8). Using similar language, Allan Sekula states that pho
as an "illusory
tographs, mechanically produced images, manifest
independence from thematrix of suppositions that determine [their]
readability"(4).Although themeaning of a photograph appears to
be the unmediated "re-presentation of nature itself" (Sekula 5), it
on external conditions tomake sense
depends (Sekula 4). Both Crary
and Sekula argue that the reception of mechanically produced images
on a
depends complex interaction between various cultural discourses
already in play. The Victorians' reaction to X-ray photographs also
arises from a complex web of cultural practices already in place

prior
to
Roentgen's discovery. X-ray photographs formed a point of
intersection between the discourse of scientific progress, the institu
tion of medicine, themiddle-class fascination with mass-produced

novelty gadgets, and the discourses of propriety and beauty associated

with thebody.
to in the privileged
Certainly, the X-ray allowed the sitter participate
discourse of science, and the discovery was consistendy considered
evidence of social and scientific evolution, a boon to society. But,
while the majority manifested great curiosity and excitement about
the new photography, calling X-rays "wonderful," and "a miracle"

(Thompson, "New" 35), a minority voiced anxiety about the propri

etyof publiclyviewing thebones of thebody, althougheven critics

did not criticize the technology as such. Still others manifested inter
est in the or
supernatural magic aspect of the skeleton images rather
than in their scientific or anatomical value. Even early X-ray scientist
Silvanus Thompson prophesized that "we shall now be able to realize
Dickens' fancy when he made Scrooge perceive through Marley's
the two brass buttons on the back of his coat" ("New" 35).
body
out that were very
Allen Grove points ghost stories popular during
the late Victorian period, and these often built upon the photograph's

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

ghosdy abilityto exhibit the faces of thedead, remindingtheviewer

of his or her own mortality.Grove also notes that this slighdyghoul
ish aspect of portraitphotographywas exploited by spiritualistswho
used special processes to introduce or skeletons
ghosdy afterimages
into portrait The offers a
photographs. X-ray ghosdy image, for
X-ray photographs of bony hands are only readable as hands because

they reproduce the familiar image of a skeleton. Upon seeing the

X-ray of her hand, Mrs. Roentgen, Wilhelm Roentgen's wife and first

subject,was initiallytroubledby the idea that theX-ray image actually

represented her hand (Eisenberg 24). Others shared Mrs. Roentgen's
trepidation when saw their familiar hands
they
rendered alien and strange technol
by X-ray
ogy. Instead of seeingwith the simplegaze of
the uninitiated, the X-ray viewer saw the
deep
structures of
body with the all-knowing gaze
of the scientist or with the
magical view of
themedium. The X-ray allied the scientific and
the progressive with the occult and the maca

bre, yet,despite thisdestabilizingpotential,

theX-ray craze seems to have rein
ultimately
forced the idea of scientificprogress in the late Figure ?
1 Frau R ntgensband
Victorian withring
period.

II. The "Man in the Street" as Scientist

The X-ray craze was fueled by the to

public's desire participate in
scientific discourse. This desire is visible in the circulation of one

particularly popular the 'skeleton hand' to

image: portrait. According
QuarterlyReview,one of themost banal photographs of 1896was
the
the "notorious skeleton-hand holding up a signet-ring poised round
thevanished bulk of one of itsfingers" ("Photography" 500). In fact,
the image originated inWilhelm own paper on
Roentgen's X-rays,
which was firstpublished inEnglish inNature magazine inJanuary
1896. Roentgen included X-rays of his wife's hand with a ring on
the third finger and of a compass hidden in a wooden box. (Fig.l.

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

Frau Roentgen's hand with ring.W. C. R?ntgen "On a New Kind of

same issue of Nature
Rays." Nature. 23 Jan. 1896: 276.) The followed
on
Roentgen's article with another article X-rays by A. A. G Swinton
inwhich Swinton tests Roentgen's a skeletal
apparatus by producing
imageof his own hand. At his only public demonstrationof X-rays,
Roentgen took an X-ray of anatomist Albert von Kolliker's hand.
Von Kolliker was delighted to see his skeleton hand, and he renamed
on the
X-rays "Roentgen rays" spot (Eisenberg 27). Skeleton-hand
so theQuarterly Review
portraits became popular that by mid-1896,
bemoaned the conventionality of X-ray photographs:

The performances of Ro[e]ntgen's rays are obvious to the

"man in the street"; they are repeated in every lecture-room;

they are caricatured in comic prints; hits are manufactured out

of them at the theatres; nay, they are personally interesting to
every one afflictedwith a gouty finger. ("Photography" 496)

Public exhibitionsand lectures on X-rays added to the popularity of

skeleton-hand X-rays. Although such exhibitions generally involved
volunteers from the audience having their hands or purses X-rayed,
the exhibitors also took numerous X-rays of their own hands, often
to help testor adjust the apparatus (Mould 26).Well-known photog
one
rapher Snowden Ward conducted such exhibition for the Royal

Photographic Society inFebruary 1896.Another was held thatyear

at the In May, was treated to
Crystal Palace. the Americanpublic
the sight of Thomas Edison's assistant Clarence Dally using his own
as a test
hand object during the New York Electrical Exhibition.
was
Dally operating Edison's newly
patented fluoroscope. (Fig. 2. Dally
at exhibition.
using fluoroscope
RichardMould "The Early History
of X-Rays inMedicine." X-Rays:
The First Hundred Years. Chin
chester:Wiley, 1996. 22-41.) The
was a machine that
fluoroscope
Fgure
2?Dally using at exhibition.
fluoroscope allowed the image of any object
Ricard Mould screen and the
placed between the

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

X-ray coil to be seen on the screen. Itwas one of

instantaneously
many new inventions patented that year. Dally, who was right
X-ray
handed, placed his left hand between the coil and the screen when

adjusting the coil's electricalfield. ImitatingDally, patrons placed a

key or coin in theirglove prior to placing theirhand in themachine,
and the image of their skeletal hand, marked
by the location of
themetal object, appeared on the screen (Eisenberg 166). Early
X-ray scientists themselves thus popularized themost hackneyed of

photographs, the skeleton-hand. The member of the public who took

a skeleton-hand him or herself with
portrait associated the scientific

project of Swinton, and Edison, among others, literally

Roentgen,
moment of scientific
reliving Roentgen's discovery.
The thrillof scientificdiscoverywas also available inboth specialized
and popular journals,includingtheBritish Medical JournalThe British
JournalofPhotographyprinted 31 articleson X-rays in 1896 and applied
tomummies, in lawsuits, and for treatments; indeed,
X-rays beauty
many physicians employedX-rays in depilatory treatments(Knight
24). In the summerof 1896, theBritish
Medical Journal'schief contribu
tor on student Sydney Rowland, began a multidisci
X-rays, medical
to the
plinary journal devoted subject of X-rays. Eventually called
TheArchivesof the Ray, the journalpublished theproceedings
Roentgen
of the newly-founded Roentgen Society of London. During its early

years, theArchives included images submitted by photographers, engi

neers, and medical doctors, and, while these images often accom
case
panied descriptions designed
to aid physicians, thepopular
skeleton-hand images also
appeared. (Fig. 3. A gouty hand.
'TlateXXX (b)"Archivesof the
RoentgenRayNov. 1897; Fig. 4.
A gouty hand. "Plate LIV (b)"
Archivesof the
Roentgen RayNov.
1898.)These imagesof gouty
hands are typicalof the images
in the Archives of the Figure hand.
3?A gouty
published

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

were
Roentgen Ray. The images
taken formedical reasons and con
form to the conventions of late
Victorian medical photography: the
body is depersonalized and frag
mented, only thebody part of
interest is photographed, and the

? body is displayed anonymously.As

Figure 4 A goutyhand
Daniel and Christopher Law
Fox
rence note, medical of
photographs
the 1850's and 1860's depicted appropriately-dressedpatients in
domestic settings, but by the 1890's "conventions had changed and
sitters were anonymous, often with blacked-out eyes, naked, in plain
and with the diseased area visible"
backgrounds fragments, only (26).
These gouty hand images appeared in different issues, and the second
was taken by a Itwas common to
photographer. practice for doctors
send patients to photographers forX-rays, or conversely, for patients
to go
independendy for a sitting then take the X-ray to the doctor's
office. In an editorial comment, Sydney Rowland encourages the
to collect a series of gouty hand in order
Roentgen Society images
to linkthealreadydefined stagesof thedisease with theX-ray image
of each stage (62). The treats as a tool,
suggestion X-rays diagnostic
for theprincipleof the collection is to be diagnosis of gout. The sug
also no on the
gestion implies that diagnosis will longer rely patient's
complaints but will rely instead on the visible markers of disease.

Despite the admitteddifficultyinmastering visual gadgetryand the

increased physical contact between
patient and doctor, there was a

growingbelief during thisperiod thatdiagnosis using visualmarkers

of disease was superior
to that based on
patient testimony (Reiser
55). Medical gadgetry included opthalmascopes, laryngoscopes, sp?c
ulums, and rectal, stomach and bladder illuminations (Reiser 55).
The Archives of theRoentgen Ray also published skeleton-hand X-rays
thatmixed the conventions of medical and portrait photography
and revealed that even professionals enjoyed reliving the
moment of
scientific discovery. (Fig. 5. X-ray of hand wearing jewelry. "Plate XLI

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

RayMay 1898.)This imageof a hand is

(a)"Archivesof theRoentgen
also typicalof \& with the image
Archives.Since the jewelryinterferes
of the skeleton, this image has no medical value. It is similar to a
medical photograph in thatit is fragmentedand impersonalbut unlike
a medical because the sitter is "dressed," for the woman's
photograph
as an status
jewelry functions identifying marker of gender and social
akin to the conventional clothing and poses of portrait photography.
on the sleeve appears in the X-ray, the
Since the beadwork image is
as a woman's hand. Her bracelet and rings also mark the
recognizable
image since theyallow the sitterto identifythisparticularX-ray of her
hand. The X-ray renders the hand, a symbol of familiarity, alien and

strange, but the shapes of the rings, and their location and number,
are familiar marks whereas the gouty hand images are indistinguish
able from any other gout patient's X-ray. In fact, X-rays that dis
a woman's were
played wedding ring
sought-after tokens of fidelity (Cart
wright 115).The photographsmay
have implied that thewearer intended
towear the ring until "death us do

part." Therefore, the popular skele

ton-hand X-ray, like a "dressed" por- x-rayofhandwtaringj^ky

trait photograph, reinforced the social

role of the sitter and offered the thrill of recapturing themoment
of the X-ray's discovery by repeating the image of Mrs. Roentgen's
hand.

III. "Tombstone Souvenirs Unpleasant"

were enthusiastic about

Although many people X-rays, others found
the X-ray's mixture of medical and social conventions disconcerting.

Punchy for example, includes a poem about X-rays in its January 1896
edition:

O, R?ntgen, then the news is true,

And not a trick of idle rumour,
That bids us each beware of you,

Victorian Review 63
 S. Pamboukian

And of your grim and graveyard humour.

We do notwant likeDr SWIFT

To take our flesh off and to pose in
Our bones, or show each litde rift
And to your nose
joint for you poke in.

We crave to
only contemplate
Each other's usual full dress photo
Your worse than "altogether" state
Of portraiture we bar in toto

The fondest swain would

scarcely prize
A picture of his lady's framework
To gaze on this with yearning eyes
tame work.
Would probably be voted

No, keep them foryour epitaph

These tombstone souvenirs unpleasant;
Or go away and
photograph
Mahatmas, spooks, and Mrs. B-S-NT!

("New Photography" 45)

This poet mocks the purchaser of X-ray portraits for confusing

photographic conventions and employing an X-ray in

photograph
place of the usual "full-dress photo." Unlike the conventional photo
graph, the X-ray offered both privacy and exposure since the sitter
is "naked" of both clothes and flesh. A
journalist in the Pall Mall
Gazette focused on the X-ray's exposure of the body when he claimed
that "you can see other people's bones with the naked eye and also
see
through eight inches of solid wood. On the revolting indecency of
this, there is no need to dwell" (qtd. inMould 25). In Punch, the inde
cency is less pronounced because the X-ray's exposure leads, para
to since the naked skeleton is unrecognizable as
doxically, modesty
a the swain's X-ray of his lady exposes
particular person. Therefore,
her body to such an extent that she appears asexual,
paradoxically
macabre rather than erotic.

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

even the macabrehad a certain the member

However, appeal. While
an
of the public who took X-ray associated him or herself with
he or she also in the
science, participated popular interest in ghosts
and death. Indeed, every X-ray was as
photograph perfecdy readable
both clinical anatomy and ghoulish skeleton. This is not to an
posit
absolute opposition between science and spiritualism: in fact, science
was often to prove the existence of
employed by spiritualists ghosts.
Lisa notes that shows
Cartwright involving skeletons had been popu
lar since the mid-1860's, to the Victorians' "fascination with
testifying
the illusionistic
and metaphysical deployment of light... [to] uncover
truths about death and the afterlife" (115). Tom Gunning describes
this type of photography as a to, rather than a contradiction
parallel
of, scientific photography; indeed, organizations such as the Society
for Psychical Research mirrored organizations such as the Roentgen

Society and habitually used photography to document their scientific

investigations into psychic phenomena. Conversely, many spiritualists

used the photographic process to create fraudulent or errone
simply
ous
prints of ghosts and skeletons. Jennifer Tucker examines the
Victorian debates about spirit photography and investigates the ways
inwhich Victorians as evidence of truth.
accepted photography
Tucker notes that spiritphotography,althoughdefended by respected
scientists and photographers, "never fully escaped
imputations of
imposture" (396). Gunning also describes fraudulent
"spirit pho
tographs" depicting disembodied faces and figures and "floating

trumpets, transported objects, disembodied hands, ectoplasmic extru

sions" (51). Floating and disembodied hands were also popular items
in spirit cabinets to prove the existence of life after death
designed
(Gunning60). The spiritualists'use of disembodied or ghosdy hand
must
images certainly have colored theX-ray sitter's experience of
his or her own skeleton hand.
seeing
The image of the skeleton had other meanings during the fin de
si?cle. Urban dwellers, particularly New Yorkers to Ben
according
as a sensa
Singer, used the skeleton popular image of modernity's
tional aspects. In his discussion of modernity and sensationalism,
to numerous cartoons
Singer points images of skeletons in popular

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

tram
illustrating the dangers of urban life. Skeleton auto, taxi and
drivers represent the "new dangers of the technologized urban envi
ronment" (Singer 79). The newspapers these cartoons
juxtaposed
with gory descriptions of dismembered accident victims. Singer con
cludes that such images and texts display a of
"hyperconsciousness
physicalvulnerability"in thenew citiesof the late 1890's (83) but
that this vulnerability "transposed itself into the aesthetic of popular
amusement" a
(92). Conversely, traditionally religious reviewer in the
thatmen of science are themost
Spectator complains superstitious
because of "their readiness to be run away with words ... ...
by [and]
to at their own
worship blindly and perversely litde shrine"
("Super
stition" 138). The anti-materialist that Roentgen
editorial claims rays,
instead of iUuminating the inner man, were worthless because they
could not "take the deceit from his heart and the lie from his lips" as

only spiritualilluminationcould ("Superstition" 138).

IV. "Is there such a thing as X ray dermatitis?"

was crazes
By 1898, the popularity of X-ray sittings waning. As
do, theX-ray craze may simply have fizzled out. But other factors
were also for the decline of amateur X-ray photography.
responsible
lobbied to exclude non-medical from X-ray
Physicians personnel
photography. They argued the body made
that their expertise about
their interpretations of the X-ray photographs to those
superior
of untrained photographers or electrical
engineers. In his textbook,
Dr. Mihran Kassabian warns
about the difficulty of X-ray inter

pretation (Kevles 93), and notes, "x ray diagnosis will carry more
court ifmade a a man
weight in by physician, then ifmade by
who ismerely a photographer" (qtd. in Eisenberg 547). The focus
on
interpretation removed X-rays from the assumptions of portrait
as
photography, where the image is accepted unmediated reality.
In 1898, theRoentgen Societyheard papers on thedifficulty
of
on the
interpreting human X-rays because of shadows image that
could easily be mistaken for lesions ("Roentgen Society" 63). Further
more, by the turn of the century, most major London hospitals had

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

set up in-house and no longer needed to refer

X-ray apparatuses
patients to photographers' shops. Hospitals offered medical imaging,
photography, and state-of-the-art aseptic conditions to prevent dis
ease transmission were
(Sequeira 270). By 1900, there X-ray depart
ments at the London St. Bartholomew's,
hospital, Guy's, King's,
Charing Cross, Middlesex, Cancer, and West London Hammersmith
(Thomas 45). By 1905, justunder twentythousand patients yearly
were
using the light therapy services of the London hospital where
there were suites for X-ray and radium treatment of
lupus, of skin
diseases such as ringworm, and of tumors.
inoperable Physicians
claimed that, like were to be "measured and doled out,
drugs, X-rays
as so many were
prescribed and dispensed 'Roentgens'" because they
"tamed and harnessed for the use of man" 1905, 4).
("Editorial,"
Although photographers occasionally staffed radiology departments,

hospitals favored physicians and nurses, and the non-medical trade

diminished.

Another factor in the professionalization of the X-ray involved com

about the From the
plaints technology. beginning, there had been
reports of burns, called X-ray dermatitis, on sitters and on photog
to
raphers after exposure X-rays. Herbert Hawks, who conducted
a
X-ray exhibitions, developed deep sunburn, swollen hands, hair
loss, and peeling on his hands and face (Eisenberg 158), and Clarence
Dally, Edison's assistant, also suffered itchy skin, peeling, hair loss,
and swollen hands. Edison himself suffered mild symptoms, and the
affliction led Edison to discontinue on the
experimentation X-ray for
safetyreasons (Mould 31). A July1897 editorial in theArchivesof
theRoentgen Ray a as X ray dermatitis?"
queries, "Is there such thing
and concludes that the case against X-rays is a
strong
"undoubtedly
one" (Hedley 12). In 1898, theRoentgen Society of London formed
an to
X-ray injuries committee investigate X-ray dermatitis. But,
meanwhile, to Edison's horror, Clarence Daily's dermatitis did not
in itworsened
heal; fact, despite giving up X-ray photography. After
arms
having both amputated, Clarence Dally died of cancer in 1904,
and became the first of what were called "X-ray martyrs," scientists
who died investigating
X-rays (Mould 31). By 1910,many photogra

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

or had died, and,

phers and radiologists had suffered amputation
lead aprons and came into use, but
accordingly, gloves widespread
safetyproblems dogged radiology,and byWorld War I thepopular
a a or an It
image of radiologist included gloved amputated hand.
was not until 1921 that was and
safety legislation passed in England
America, one year before was
although only safety legislation passed,
which are for the feet,
coin-operated Foot-o-Scopes, fluoroscopes
in shoe stores, where they remained until afterWorld War
appeared
II so thatmothers could check whether their children's toe bones
were being pinched by small shoes (Mould 34).
To modern readers, the Victorians' to toxic
inability recognize X-ray
ity appears
to be "detached indifference" to suffering or blindness
in the face of "incontestable After all,
proof" (Cartwright 126-127).
in 1897William Rollins, a GE employee,had established the toxicity
of X-rays a scientist
by irradiating guinea pigs, and Elihu Thomson,
and engineer, had concluded that chemicals or electrical fields did
not cause X-ray dermatitis ("Rontgen Ray and its Relation" 419).
Exposing his littlefingertoX-rays for20minutes while shielding
his other fingers behind lead glass, Thomson that neither
proved
nor chemicals caused the dermatitis because if that had
electricity
so all of his his
been fingers would have been affected. Since only
pinky
was affected, Thomson concluded that radiation of some sort
was a new
responsible ("Rontgen Ray and its Relation" 419). As
gadget, the X-ray participated in the Victorian discourse of progress,
the institution of medicine, and the discourse of visual culture, and
these discourses themselves on the cultural reception of the
imposed
X-ray in various ways. For example, in theQuarterly Revieu/s summary
of Roentgen's is a "perfect representation
experiment, the firstX-ray
of four skeleton fingers!" ("Photography" 500). The exclamation
is the climax
point and the word perfect imply that scientific discovery
of the narrative, not the beginning or a mere stepping-stone. In
the popular view of scientific discovery, knowledge is gained com
man ... the astonished
pletely and instantaneously, leaving "civilized
owner of a new and 496). Simi
mysterious power" ("Photography"
larly, Silvanus Thompson labels Roentgen's moment of discovery

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

the touch" to the

"crowning nineteenth-century's experiments with
electricity("New PhotographicDiscovery" 35), and Swinton calls ita
"completing finial upon a marvellous edifice" 291).
("Photographing"
Immediately after their discovery X-rays were considered "tamed and
harmless for the benefit of mankind" 1906 291). More
("Editorial"
over, as Leopold Freund
commented, the rate of X-ray dermatitis
was

very low, only four cases in twenty thousand patients (294).

The phenomenon of radiation was without precedent inVictorian

science, which led many to equate X-rays with other light-emitting

substances and visual phenomena, themost obvious of which was

photography. Swinton classifies X-rays with the telephone, photogra

as
phy, and the phonograph major discoveries of the age ("New Pho
and were often called the new or
tography" 265), X-rays photography
the of the invisible, as if there was a
photography similarity between
the two Silvanus compares X-rays to other
technologies. Thompson
natural "phenomena of light" including uranium, insect lights, and

phosphorescence emitted from rotting material

("Roentgen Society"
6). Similarly, the Pall Mall Gazette investigates other substances, such
as
printer's ink,mercury and cobalt, which affect photographic
plates when placed in close proximity for an extended period ("Dr.
Russell's" 18). In these accounts, there is litde differentiation between
or fireflies and such as uranium or X-rays,
glowworms phenomena
a on on
signaling categorization simply based visibility rather than
toxicology. Another reviewer, David Walsh, lumps X-ray burns with
industrial burns caused by other visible radiation such as the sun, a

furnace, or alkali agents (69). Walsh to

compares susceptibility X-rays
with susceptibility to sunburn, a phenomenon that varies with the
individual but is generally harmless (70). In 1899, reviewer E. Payne
states that "from our of the nature of theX rays it is
knowledge
difficult to understand how the injuries can be since there
produced,
are neither nor effects" (67). Indeed, from the
heating decomposing
vantage point of Victorian science, itwas difficult to understand the
manner inwhich X-rays caused harm because
X-ray photographs
were
fundamentally different from other visual phenomena. But the
desire to find
continuity between previous discoveries and the X-ray

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

was bolstered as
by national pride that claimed the discovery largely
due to British science. In his 1898 address to the Roentgen
February
Society inLondon, William Webster claimed that thework of British
scientists Crookes and Jackson was so vital to
X-rays that "the Union

Jack can be placed almost entirelyover thediscovery" (52), although

Roentgen's "accidental" view of his fingers also deserved credit (52).

The discourse of progress also encouraged the Victorians to

impose
a curve on that the
steep learning X-ray accidents, assuming early
were
problems with dermatitis simply the result of lack of experience,
not new
problems with the rays themselves. Operators developed
new methods to combat the that
techniques and problem, believing
newer inventions would
surely solve previous problems. As Swinton
and the discoveries that make knowledge, ... are
writes, "knowledge,
... to the universal law of and he connects the
subject evolution,"
discovery of theX-ray with the discovery of fire, coracles, and the
wheel ("New Photography" 264). In order to help the X-ray evolve,
advocates used aluminum sheets over the bulb ("M. Tesla" 18) and
sheets of Indian rubber over the body to insulate against electrostatic
burns ("Notes" 59). Even Elihu Thomson, whose are
experiments
as recom
often cited conclusively proving the danger of X-rays,
mended methods to combat the dangers. Thomson blamed "soft"
vacuum in the tube with
X-rays caused by low causing burns because
the "hard" rays created with a high vacuum passed through the body
and were "doubdess incapable of doing any injury" ("Roentgen Ray
Burns" 88). W Deane Butcher concluded that the danger was due
to ozone in the air and to ionization of the air. Butcher advocated

improving the ventilation of X-ray rooms, shielding the X-ray bulb,

and wearing gloves and lead aprons (38): he claimed thatX-ray
dermatitis "can be readily obviated by the use of properly protected

gloves" (39). Precautions against long exposure, knowledge about

excessive susceptibility(such as duringpregnancy), shieldingof the
bulb and the standardization and measurement
of the rays supported
the belief thatX-ray dermatitis was simply due to errors in procedure.
Rather than limiting work on the X-ray, many scientists cited the sac
rifices of the "pioneers" who were not aware of the dangers of X-rays

volume 27 number 2
 "Looking Radiant"

as reason to continue work,

implying thatmodern practitioners had
made significantstrides inX-ray safety(Butcher38).

V. Conclusion

The X-ray craze allied the weird, macabre world of

spiritualism with
the scientific and the it also revealed the sense
progressive; growing
of violation and fear of the urban population
already surrounded with
gadgets and machinery. Therefore, it had the potential to undermine
theVictorian cult of progress. The X-ray craze made visible the

dangers of applying technologywilly-nillyto thebody. In fact,the

craze made visible themediation needed in the most ordinary
X-ray
scientific observation. Because radiation could not be seen or felt,
it represented a type of phenomenon that could not be observed
in a traditional, manner. Unlike the X-ray
empirical photographs,
cannot as an unmediated
masquerade picture of truth because radia
tion damages tissues in order to render them visible, problematizing

photography's claims to truth and objectivity. Moreover, the X-ray

revealed an entirely
new field about which the Victorians had been
a mediator
entirely unaware, and the dangers of that field demanded
between the imaging gadget and the body, and medicine eagerly took
on the role of the status
gatekeeper. This role certainly increased
of medicine in the twentieth-century, but, more importandy, the
formediation a
need between technology and the body represents
shift in the discourse of progress, although not its termination. The
to accept the to the
reluctance X-ray's toxicity testifies strength of
the discourse of progress in the late nineteenth-century. Clearly, X-ray
was as evidence of science's abil
technology regarded ever-increasing
to reveal the hidden truths of nature, and many Victorians
ity clung
to the notion that scientific progress led to social benefits.
inevitably
The ongoing confidence in new to correct the
X-ray, the
gadgetry
belief thatX-ray dermatitis was caused by errors, the reluctance to

legislate safety measures, and themarketing of Foot-o-Scopes until

well into the twentieth-century testify to the power and persistence
of the ideology. The X-ray proved that, rather than simply revealing

Victorian Review
 S. Pamboukian

or truth, science, and its accompanying

concealing technological gad
getry, could simultaneously reveal structures and create damage, both
benefit and harm.

Indiana University

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74 volume 27 number 2