ABSTRACT
Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen's first communication made public the fact that X-rays excited fluorescent substances and the world's first fluoroscope quickly followed in January 1896. Diagnostic radiology started with X-ray plates and screens of a very basic nature and the plates were relatively quickly replaced by X-ray film, but the future for the start of the second century of X-rays is the filmless X-ray Department and a computer network with workstations and links to digital archives and radiological information systems and Imaging Departments which not only have X-ray but also magnetic resonance (MR), ultrasound and nuclear medicine imaging facilities within an umbrella framework. The shape of the variously called cryptoscopes/skiascopes/fluoroseopes/lorgnette humaine for fluoroscope/radioscopy was soon changed to that of a pyramid, and this type of design remained in use for many years and it was still the recommended model for use in 1915 by the United States Army.
