ABSTRACT
The discovery of X-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen in late 1895 has been recounted innumerable times. Rontgen’s research focused heavily on X-ray attenuation properties of materials and little on X-ray production, detection, quantification, and characterization. Rontgen’s approach reflected his knowledge culture as academic experimental physicist and hobby photographer. In Franz Exner’s physics laboratory his assistant Eduard Haschek was charged with exploring the X-ray phenomenon. He decided to collaborate with Otto Lindenthal, a medical doctor candidate and auditor at the Pathoanatomical Institute, who had access to anatomical specimens. In some cases, including that of Franz Exner, physics professor at the University of Vienna, the preprint was accompanied by photographic positives of several of his radiographs. While radiographing various wound dressing materials, physics professor Aime Forster at the University of Bern, Switzerland, observed the strong X-ray absorption of bismuth subnitrate.
