November 8 - X-Rays Are Observed for the First Time

This Day in History: 8 November 2020

 

8 November 1895

 

125 years ago, today, Germany scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen became the first person to observe X-rays, a significant scientific advancement that benefitted a variety of fields, especially medicine, by making the invisible visible. His discovery occurred accidentally in his lab in Wurzburg, Germany, where he was testing if cathode rays could pass through glass when he noticed a glow coming from a nearby chemically coated screen. He dubbed the rays that caused this glow 'X-rays' because of their unknown nature. This was labelled as a medical miracle and X-rays soon became an important diagnostic tool in medicine.

 

Doctors could now see inside the human body for the first time without surgery, and in 1897, X-rays were used on a military battlefield for the first time, during the Balkan War, to find bullets and broken bones inside patients. Scientists realised the benefits of X-rays but were slow to comprehend their harmful effects. It was though initially they were as harmless as light, but within several years, burns and skin damage was reported after exposure to X-rays. Thomas Edison's assistant, Clarence Dally, died of skin cancer after working extensively with X-rays, causing scientists to begin taking the risks of radiation more seriously.

 

Want to find out more about the history of X-rays? Click here for more information, or here for more about Wilhelm Röntgen.

Black History Month - Mary Seacole

Black History Month: 12 October 2020

 

Mary Seacole was born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1805. Her father was a Scottish soldier, and her mother a Jamaican. Mary learned her nursing skills from her mother, who kept a boarding house for invalid soldiers. In 1850, she nursed victims of the Kingston cholera epidemic. She travelled to Panama in 1851 as the town of Cruces was suffering its own outbreak of the disease. In 1853, Mary returned to Kingston, caring for victims of a yellow fever epidemic.

 

In 1854, Seacole travelled to England, and went to the War Office, asking to be sent as an army nurse to the Crimea where there was known to be poor medical facilities for wounded soldiers. However, she was refused. Despite this, Seacole funded her own trip to the Crimea where she established the British Hotel to care for wounded soldiers. Unlike Florence Nightingale's hospital, Mary's hotel near Balaclava was much closer to the fighting. Mary was able to visit the battlefield, sometimes under fire, to nurse the wounded. Indeed, she nursed sick soldiers so kindly that they called her 'Mother Seacole'. When the war ended, Mary went back to Britain with very little money. Soldiers wrote letters to newspapers, praising what she had done. In 1857, a fund-raising gala was held for her over four nights on the banks of the River Thames and over 80,000 people attended.

 

Her legacy is continued by the Mary Seacole Trust (MST) which, as well as maintaining her statue, aims to educate and inform the public about her life, work and achievements, ensuring that her contribution to history is never forgotten.

 

Want to find out more about Mary Seacole? Click here for more information, or here for more about the Mary Seacole Trust.