Discovery of X-rays and its Impact in India* OF X-RAYS AND ITS IMPACT IN INDIA 69 Fig. 3....

66 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE DOI:10.16943/ijhs/2017/v52i1/41301

Discovery of X-rays and its Impact in India*

S C Roy**

(Received 05 June 2016)

Abstract

This paper presents some unknown or less known facts related to the discovery of X-rays. Theimpact that it made immediately after the discovery of X-rays in 1895, in the scientific community ofIndia has also been presented.

Keywords: Discovery of X-rays, J. C. Bose, Mahendra Lal Sircar, Roentgen, X-ray photograph.

*The work has been performed under the sponsorship of a project: “History of X-ray Research in British India” by the IndianNational Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi.

**Indian Science News Association, 92 Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road, Kolkata 700009.E-mail:[email protected]

1. INTRODUCTION

Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923)has been credited with the discovery of X-raysand was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physicsin 1901 based on this discovery. Roentgen’sdiscovery is known to be the result of an accidentwhile he was experimenting with a discharge tube.The objective of the current article is to presentless known facts, such as that X-rays wereproduced experimentally much before Roentgen’sdiscovery in 1895 as has been found in literatureand also to study the influence of this discoveryon the scientific community of India.

According to conventional scientificprotocol, the date on which the paper has beenfirst submitted for publication is considered as thedate of the discovery. According to this, December28, 1895 is considered as the date of discoverywhen Roentgen submitted his first “provisorial”communication Uebereineneue Art von Strahlen(On a New Kind of Rays) which was published inthe Proceedings of the Würzburg Physico-MedicalSociety (Sitzungber der WürzburgerPhysik.-MedikGesellschaft). First oral presentation of the

discovery was made before the same WürzburgSociety on January 23, 1896. According to thereport published in the Münchener MedicinischeWochenschrift of January 29, 1896, the meetingwas chaired by the famous anatomist AlbertRudolf von Kolliker (1817-1905). After the lectureRoentgen produced an X-ray picture of Kolliker’shand in a glass plate (Fig. 1). It was Dr. Kollikerwho proposed that the new rays be knownhenceforth as Roentgen rays (Grigg, 1965).

Fig.1. First X-ray picture made in public by Roentgenduring his first oral presentation before theWürzburg Physico-Medical Society on January 23,1896. The picture shows the hand of Albert Kollikerwho chaired the talk.

Indian Journal of History of Science, 52.1 (2017) 66-77

DISCOVERY OF X-RAYS AND ITS IMPACT IN INDIA 67

Like Jagadis Chandra Bose who refusedto take patent of his microwave discovery,Roentgen also refused to take patent of any partof his discovery and rejected all commercialproposals connected to this discovery. However,unlike J.C. Bose he lost all his savings due to postwar inflation and suffered financial and otherdifficulties in the last years of his life.

Roentgen’s discovery was shrouded withmystery, stories and controversies whichsometimes reached a stage of humiliation to thegreat scientist. The discovery was accidental. Aswe all know, a screen in his laboratory began tofluoresce even though the running Hittorfdischarge tube (not Crookes tube) was coveredwith dark paper. There is not much differencebetween Hittorf and Crookes discharge tubeexcept that the vacuum is more in the latter. It isto be remembered in this connection that X-raytubes that we are talking about were known ascold discharge tubes in which ionization of gasby high voltage was the source of electrons incontrast to modern X-ray tubes which contain aheated filament for producing electrons.

It is believed that fluorescence was firstnoticed (Peh, 1995) by Roentgen’s laboratoryassistant Ludwig Zhender in 1890, who whileworking with the discharge tube covered withblack cloth observed the fluorescence in thefluorescent screen placed nearby. AlthoughZhender was loyal to Roentgen throughout his lifeand had not claimed any recognition, but this storywas severely distorted to humiliate Roentgen andhe was accused of stealing his Diener’s discovery(Grigg, 1965). The exact date of his discovery—when he understood the importance of thepenetrating power of this new ray—is not knownfor sure. In accordance with Roentgen’s will allhis notes were destroyed after his death. From aletter (Grigg, 1965) written by his wife AnnaBertha Ludwig to one of his cousins Mrs. L.R.Grauel of Indianapolis in March 1896, it was foundthat Roentgen first noticed this new radiation

sometime in November 1895. As Berthamentioned in her letter, on one evening ofNovember 1895 she became angry with herhusband for the quality of food. In order to sootheher, Roentgen took her downstairs to his laboratoryand introduced her to the mysterious new rays.However, it was not mentioned whether her handwith a ring was exposed to this ray (Fig.2.) on thesame day, but according to Edgar AshworthUnderwood, Director of Wellcome HistoricalMuseum the picture of his wife’s hand was takenon November 8, 1895. This date was accepted byKonrad Weiss, the historiographer of AustrianRoentgen Society and is accepted as the date ofthe discovery.

Fig. 2. X-ray picture taken by Roentgen in 1895 of his wifeBertha Ludwig’s hand. (Courtesy: Prof. AlokMukherjee of Jadavpur University, Kolkata)

2. X-RAYS PRODUCED BEFORE ROENTGEN

There are evidences that X-rays had beenproduced experimentally before Roentgen’s datein 1895. This is not surprising because the basicphysical process to generate X-rays is the passageof electricity through gases which had been startedstudying in eighteenth century. Francis Hauksbee(estimated to be died in 1713) who was the Curatorof Experiments to the Royal Society, Londondescribed seeing ‘the shape and figure of all parts

68 INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE

of his hand’ while working with electricity andvacuum (Peh, 1995). Interest in the study ofdischarge in gases was revived in the middle ofnineteenth century after Faraday’s experimentswith “radiant matter” and many scientists wereinvolved in producing different improviseddischarge tubes to study discharge of gases.Heinrich Geissler, Johann Wilhelm Hittroff, andSir William Crookes were some of the people whoworked with discharge tubes and they hadunknowingly exposed to X-rays while working.

Interestingly, in 1879 William Crookes(1832-1919) produced X-rays when the vacuumof his discharge tube was high enough as he foundthe photographic plates stored near his work tablewere fogged. Without knowing the real cause offogging he blamed the manufacturer for supplying‘defective’ plates (Grigg, 1965).

Philipp Lenard (1862-1947) worked oncathode rays and it is believed that he was veryclose to the discovery of X-rays. In fact bothLenard and Roentgen was nominated for the NobelPrize in Physics for the year 1901, and theCommittee recommended that the prize should bedivided equally between Roentgen and Lenard.However, the Royal Academy of Science did notfollow this recommendation and decided to awardthe prize to Roentgen alone. On October 12, 1892Lenard had been able to show for the first timethat cathode rays can penetrate the aluminiumwindow and can travel a few inches in air byobserving the fluorescence produced on granulesof potassium phosphate placed outside the tube(Glasser, 1934). After about four years in 1905,the Nobel Committee decided to award the NobelPrize to Lenard for his ingenious work on cathoderays. Lenard, however, considered himself to be“the mother of X-rays” while Roentgen was “themidwife who happened to deliver the child”. Thereare other scientists who are believed to haveobserved X-rays before Roentgen and we are notgoing into the details of those stories.

However, the first recorded evidence toproduce Roentgen rays was about hundred yearsbefore Roentgen by William Morgan (1750-1833),the Welsh mathematician and Chief Actuaryof British Equitable Assurance Society. He(Morgan, 1784) reported in the PhilosophicalTransactions that based on the length of time forwhich mercury was boiled in vacuum—the‘electric’ light turned violet, purple, then beautifulgreen and finally the light became invisible! Hissuccess was based on the use of an improvedvacuum, made possible by ‘boiling mercury’which was a method developed by a certain Walsh(exact identity not known) (Grigg, 1965). Morganalso presented this discovery to the Royal Societyin 1784 which was witnessed by Richard Priceand one of Richard’s friends an American‘electrician’, famous Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)!

3. THE FIRST X-RAY ROENTGENOGRAPH:CLAIMS AND COUNTER-CLAIMS

The first ‘shadow graph’ or‘Roentgenograph’ of metal objects was obtainedby accident in 1892 by a Philadelphiaexperimentalist Arthur Willis Goodspeed (1860-1943). The story goes like that Bill Jennings wascounting his coins after the Bill Jennings’ Carfareon the Woodland Avenue trolley when Goodspeedasked Jennings to help in photographing the sparkgap of a Ruhmkorff coil. Jennings put his coinson the top of a plate while assisting in thepositioning of the electrodes. The plate was laterfound to have black patches. Rounded shadowsshown in Fig. 3 are the images of coins. They paidlittle or no attention to those circular shadows tillthe announcement of Roentgen’s discovery wasmade when they repeated the experiment andunderstood the reason. However, Goodspeedexpressly and repeatedly denied any claims topriority because at that time he had failed tointerpret these shadows.


Fig. 3. Goodspeed’s first shadowgraph produced in theUniversity of Pennsylvaniaon February 20, 1890.The rounded shadows are coins. (Taken from: TheTrail of the Invisible Light)

What we described above is theshadowgraph or roentgenogram producedunintentionally but who produced the firstroentgenogram after the discovery of X-rays isagain marred with claims and counter-claims. Asdescribed in the book The Trail of the InvisibleLight (Grigg, 1965), the most legitimate claim isthat of a Scottish engineer Alan ArchibaldCampbell Swinton (1863-1930) who tried toreplicate X-ray photos in the beginning of 1896immediately after the discovery. He conducted hisexperiment using a homemade tube and his plateswere first reproduced in Nature on January 23 andsubsequently in Industries and Iron and theElectrical Review of London the next day.In thereconstructed timetable that he maintained, thefollowing were captured: first (poor)roentgenogram on Tuesday January 7; firstsatisfactory “metallic” (a razor in its paperboardcasing) roentgenogram on January 8; firstroentgenogram of a hand on January 13 (shownto the Prince of Wales); and first exhibit of thosetwo plates on January 16, 1896.

A bold claim was made by MichaelIdvorsky Pupin (1858-1935) of USA, animmigrant from former Serbia, that he producedthe first roentgenogram on January 2, 1896 afterRoentgen. In 1924 he wrote: “I obtained the firstx-ray photograph in America on January 2, 1896

two weeks after the discovery was announced inGermany”. This claim is self-contradictory in thesense that Roentgen made the first announcementof his discovery on January 23, 1896 before theWürzburg Society, Germany, and therefore,Pupin’s claim of January 2 is unrealistic. February2, instead of January 2, seems to be reasonablewhich is also closer to “two weeks” as claimedafter Roentgen’s first announcement. There areenough evidences to reject the date as claimed byPupin. Literature search shows that Pupin’s firstpaper on Roentgen rays (dated Saturday, February1, 1896) was published on February 5 in Electricityof New York which was essentially a summary ofdata from European sources (Grigg, 1965). Hisfirst roentgen plate as mentioned in his article waspublished in Science around February 14.Interestingly, this claim was widely accepted inthe American literature as if it had beenundoubtedly true.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931), inventor ofelectric bulb, realized the importance of theRoentgen rays as soon as the cable announcementreached the USA and immediately startedreplicating the roentgen apparatus. According toa statement made by his secretary William HenryMeadowcraft “Mr. Edison was the first torecognize the importance of the cableannouncement of Dr. Roentgen’s discovery. Thesame day he started to make the apparatus andhad it finished the next day. Three of themetropolitan dailies heard of it and for three weeksmore than twenty newspaper reporters werestationed at the Laboratory.” First interview ofEdison was made on February 7, 1896 andpublished in Times on February 8. Edison stronglybelieved that some practical (commercial)application would emerge from Roentgen’s“purely scientific” discovery and he employed hisstaff to find out the most favourable conditionsfor taking roentgen photograph. A sketch of thedesign of one of his earliest apparatus using Hittroftube is presented in Fig. 4.


4. WHAT’S IN A NAME?What’s in a name? Roses are roses, in

whatever name we call them might be true inliterature but not to scientists. There were a lot ofdebates, controversies, personal choices andetymological discussions in choosing the name ofthe pictures taken by X-rays. The very earliestterms used were the unabbreviated easilyunderstandable combinations of words such as‘X-ray photograph’ or ‘shadow photograph’.‘Roentgenography’ is a shorter version of theRoentgen photography and therefore‘roentgenogram’ originates in more than one wayfrom roentgen photograph. All scientists have theirown choice of names for the phenomenon, e.g.Frederic C. Whitmore of Philadelphia wanted‘silhougraph’, to Louis Bell of Boston everythingexcept ‘X-ray picture’ is barbarous andsophomoric; A.F. McKissick of AlabamaPolytechnic Institute at Auburn was in favour of‘Röntgraph’, which W.F. Magie found it hideous;C.F. Brackett of Princeton College contended that‘skiasmagram’ (meaning shadow-picture) wouldbe just perfect; Alex Roy of Toronto selected‘ethergraph’; Renigald Fessenden of Pittsburghsuggested ‘Lenardograph’and F.L. Woodward ofHarvard had the combination ‘electro-sciagraph’;Edison for ‘fluorography’; Max Osterberg ofColumbia College, New York for ‘skotograph’;A.W. Wright of Yale for ‘cathode’or ‘roentgen’

pictures. Finally Arthur Goodspeed, whoaccidentally obtained the X-ray picture of metalobjects before the discovery of X-rays byRoentgen and could not therefore explain the causeof the pictures, indicated that he had coined theterm ‘radiograph’ on February 7, 1896, which waspublished it in Science of February 14 and helearned that Dr. Lodge (Sir Oliver Joseph Lodge)had suggested the same term a few days later.

Then came the etymological discussion onthe origin of the word (suffix) -gram, -gramm, -gramme. The word suffix ‘-gram’ implies acombination of words as in pro-‘gram’ or pro-‘gramme’ etc. Similarly, the word suffix ‘graph’will mean words like photograph, chronograph etc,which in subtle way refers to instruments whichdraws or records. While the use of the termsRöntgraph and Röntgenograph was notuncommon, but the first official entry of the wordRöntgenogram was found in the March 1898 issueof the American X-ray Journal. Interestingly,‘radiogrpah’ was described as an instrumentdesigned to ‘inscribe the duration of sunshine’ asfar back as in April 1881 (about fifteen yearsbefore the X-ray discovery) in the Journal ofScience.

As detailed in the book The Trail of theInvisible Light, the colloquial term forroentgenogram has been derived in manylanguages from the respective word for snapshot(photographic), as the Russian snimok or theHungarian kép. In Italian it comes from the wordfor plate, lastra, which originally meant ‘polishedstone’; in French it is a feminine abbreviation laradio; in German the Röntgenbild has always beenand still is an acceptable term

5. IMPACT OF DISCOVERY OF X-RAYS

IN INDIA

The news of discovery of X-rays startedpropagating rapidly throughout Europe andreached America at the beginning of January,

Fig.4. Sketch of Edison’s early X-ray apparatus.(taken from: The Trail of the Invisible Light)


1896. Roentgen started mailing reprints of thepaper of his discovery from January 2, 1896 tohis colleagues in Vienna, Germany, Paris, England.His discovery was first printed in public domainin the January 5 1896 edition of the newspaperFreie Press in Vienna. From there the newsreached several European newspapers the next dayand it reached the United Sates on January 7, 1896by cable from the newspaper Standard (London)and was published in several Americannewspapers on January 8, 1896. The New YorkTimes reported this discovery on 16th January 1896as a new form of photography which revealedhidden solids and also exposed the bones of thehuman frame. Roentgen’s discovery in a scientificperiodical was first published in the USA underthe title Electric Photography Through Solids inthe Electrical Engineer (New York) dated January 8.

It will not be out of place to mention hereis that work on discharge tube and electric ray (asit was called at that time) also attracted theattention of science loving people in India as wefound that Father Lafont (1837-1908) of St.Xavier’s College, Calcutta brought a Crooke’stube from Europe at a time (1878-79) whenvigorous research on discharge of gases was inprogress in Europe. Father Lafont delivered alecture in 1880 titled “Crookes on Radiant Energy”in the Science Association (Biswas, 2001). LordLytton, the then Viceroy of India invited Dr.Mahendra Lal Sircar to demonstrate the actionsof Crookes tube. A contemporary report described:

“It is not possible for any individual to forget theevening Dr. Sircar had such a wonderful masteryover the subject that he very easily explained theamazing behavior of one millionth of atmosphereto the entire satisfaction to His Excellency. Twoancient European professors of science werepresent there and they directed their arguments ina sophisticated way against Dr. Sircar. They hadno belief in the bombardment of ions. But thewheels of mica placed at forty-five degreesrevolved like a well-conducted machine. That wasthe triumph of science.”

It is not known exactly when and how thenews of this discovery reached Calcutta (nowKolkata), but it is fascinating to note that it hadproduced a huge interest among the science lovingpeople in India, although still under Britishrule.Within a few months of the discovery ofX-rays,we find that Mahendralal Sircar(1833-1904), who was the founder of the IndianAssociation for the Cultivation of Science (IACS)in Calcutta, ordered a Roentgen tube fromDucretet Company in Europe and received it inJune 1896. As noted in his diary (Biswas, 2000)on Thursday 11th June 1896

"The cases (3 in number) from Ducretet containingapparatus for experimenting with Roentgen Rayswere brought from the Customs House to theAssociation today. With Amrita opened them andfound that they have omitted to send theFlourescent Screen. The cathode disc was slightlybent. The cells were too big”.

Here Amrita is his son Dr. Amritalal Sircar.He carried out experiments on 20th June 1896 toproduce photograph of hand with the procuredRoentgen machine but he failed to produce goodimages. He noted in his diary

“Made experiments on the X-rays with our newlyarrived apparatus. The hand at first was notsuccessful, but afterwards it was”.

He repeated his attempts to obtainphotograph and became successful on 23rd June,as he noted in his diary

“After visiting the patient at Maniktala, came tothe Association and performed experiments on theX-rays, The first was a failure, evidently from over-exposure. The second (frog) was particularlysuccessful. The third (a coin on a plank) was verysuccessful”.

Therefore, according to this diary, the firstsuccessful X-ray photograph was produced inIndia on 23rd June 1896 in Calcutta by MahendraLal Sircar. However, it is difficult to comprehendhow he got X-ray photograph without thefluorescent screen. It is possible that thefluorescent screen was obtained from Father


Lafont on loan as we found in his diary noted on2nd July 1896, the day before the public lecture tobe delivered by Mahendra Lal Sircar on X-rayphotography, he ‘went to Father Lafont after 5 p.m.for loan of fluorescent screen’. Sircar delivered aone and half hour lecture on the New Photographywith X-rays of Prof. Roentgen on 3rd July at theAssociation before an audience of more than 300persons. The Proceedings of the Twentieth AnnualIACS meeting held on 11 September 1897recorded

“The Association had thus the honour of being thefirst to place this remarkable discovery before theIndian public”(emphasis put by the author).

Experiments using X-rays continued at theIACS by Amrita Lal Sircar under the guidance ofMahendra Lal Sircar with blocks of wood andbooks of different thickness, with sheet of iron,tin foil and zinc foil as has been recorded in thediary of 13th December 1899. This is the beginningof X-ray research in India after the discovery ofX-rays and thus IACS became the nucleus of X-ray research in India (Biswas, 2001, AppendixXXXV).

6. JAGADIS CHANDRA BOSE AND HIS X-RAY

APPARATUS

Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) was “the first person in India to reproduceRoentgen’s discovery in 1895 of the generationof X-rays in a cathode ray tube” remarked D.M.Bose (Bose, 1949) in his article titled “TheScientific Activities of Acharya J.C. Bose”. Healso remarked that ‘reading a newspaper accountof Roentgen’s discovery’ he built an X-rayapparatus in Presidency College, Calcutta. Thestatement finds its meaning when we see thatAcharya Bose was visiting Europe in 1896 at atime when the excitement of the discovery ofRoentgen rays in Europe was at its peak. It is nowonder that Jagadish Chandra Bose, being aphysicist and an exceptional experimentalist, wasattracted to this discovery and studied in detail

about the production of Roentgen rays. JagadishChandra Bose returned to India in April 1897. Itis clear that the idea of producing X-rayscrystalized in his mind while he was in Europeand took fruition after his return to Calcutta.Although we find mention of Jagadish Chandra’sX-ray apparatus in different places, there is acontroversy regarding the exact date when he builtthe X-ray apparatus and we intend to investigate,further on that.

Arun Kumar Biswas (2000) in his bookGleanings of the Past and the Science Movementmentioned that “we have reports of Jagadis settingup his own X-ray apparatus in 1887, quite a fewyears before such a machine was imported to Indiaand showing the image of a broken bone on ascreen coated with barium platinocyanide”. It isevident that the year 1887 is not correct (which iseight years before Rontgen’s discovery of X-rays).To us 1897 appears to be more reasonable (thismight be a typo). More authenticated mention wefound in a letter written by Jagadish Chandra Boseto his friend Rabindranath Tagore. In a letter(without any date) to Rabindranath Tagore,Jagadish Chandra (Sen, 1994) wrote “if possibleplease come to Presidency College at 8 in themorning. I have to examine a patient usingRoentgen kol (machine) he has broken his back.You may feel that this is not as dangerous asmalaria which is prevalent in this country. I toohad mentioned this but could not avoid Dr.Nilratan Sircar’s request. In case you can not goto the college, come directly to no 85 at 9. I willbe back by then”. According to Shri Dibakar Sen(Sen, 1994), the author of Patrabali (collectionof letters written by Rabindranath Tagore toJagadis Chandra Bose), the letter was writtensometime in February 1898.

Shri Jogendra Kumar Chattopadhyayareported in the magazine Prabasi(Chattopadhyaya, 1935) that “Shri Jagadindu Raywho lived in Serampore was an assistant ofJagadish Chandra Bose” and “the machine was


built at Presidency College by Jagadindubabuunder the guidance of Jagadis Chandra Bose.” Theauthor also reported that he came to know fromJagadindubabu that “Satyendranath Thakur willcome today to see the machine at 3 pm. I went toPresidency College with one of my friends at3 o’ clock and learnt from Shri Jagadindubabu“Satyendrababu is in the next room with one ofhis I.M.S. friends Captain Chatterjee”. When Ientered into the next room with my friend,Professor Bose, Doctor Chatterjee andSatyendrababu looked at bones of my broken handwith great interest. Satyendrababu told to his friendin English that this is probably the first picture ofbroken hand taken using X-rays in Calcutta. Therewas no X-ray machine available then in Calcutta.”

This date seems to be reasonable becausewe have been able to locate a press reportpublished on the 5th May 1898 edition of TheAmrita Bazar Patrika (an important English daily,now discontinued) in which description of X-rayapparatus and demonstration of X-ray picture ofhands etc. by Jagadish Chandra Bose waspresented (Press Report, 1898). The press reportdescribes the apparatus as well as emphasized onthe improvement he made over the apparatus builtby Roentgen.

Unfortunately we have not found anyauthenticated description of the apparatus in hisdiary nor a photograph of his apparatus. Onlydocumented evidenceis the Press Report titled“Professor Bose and the New Light” published inthe 5thMay 1898 edition of The Amrita BazarPatrika (Sen, 1994) published from Calcutta. Fromthis it is clear that Jagadish Chandra built his X-ray apparatus which was sometime betweencoming back to Calcutta after his Europe tour inApril 1897 and May 1898. It reported

“We were shown a photograph of human palmtaken by the Professor with the new light, and theghastly sight will long be vividly imprinted in ourmemory, for there, in the photograph, instead ofthe ordinary fleshy palm is seen depicted a long

range of bones presenting a skeleton likeappearance”.

Professor Bose also shown some otherexperiments like “a leather money bag, containinga rupee and a knife was interposed between thefluorescent screen on when the images areprojected and the vacuum tube through whichsparks were passing. No sooner was the leathermoney bag interposed, than there appeared on thescreen an image of the rupee and knife reproducedwith the astounding fidelity”.

Fortunately for us, the Amrita BazarPatrika Report described the improvement thatJagadis Chandra had made in his apparatus overthat of Roentgen. Roentgen used Ruhmkorff’s coilas a source of transient high voltage in dischargingthe gas in the discharge tube. A schematic diagramof Roentgen’s apparatus is presented in Fig. 5.Ruhmkorff’s coil produces high voltage pulse inthe secondary coil by electromagnetic inductionwhen a DC supply in the primary is interruptedby a mechanical contact. Every time there is aninterruption there is a high voltage pulse in thesecondary coil. This secondary coil is connectedwith the X-ray tube. By coupling a Tesla coil withthe secondary of Ruhmkorff’s coil (which thenacts as the primary of the tesla transformer) JagadisChandra was able to produce a higher voltage,many times more than that can be produced usinga single Ruhmkorff’s coil. The news reportmentioned

“He has managed to get for better results byconnecting the induction coil with a TeslaTransformer and then allowing the sparks to passthrough the vacuum tube. The simple function ofthe piece of apparatus known as the TeslaTransformer when connected with a Ruhmkorff’scoil is to increase its power enormously and henceit is evident the new arrangement cannot but yieldexcellent results.”

On the basis of this information we haveproduced a schematic diagram (Fig. 6) close tothe apparatus he had probably used (Roy, 2015).The paper reported that Jagadis Chandra intended


to procure another huge Tesla Transformer fromEurope, which will be thousand times morepowerful than the one in his possession. The paperreported “He would join it with the DynamoElectric Machine in the Presidency College andwith this splendid apparatus, (which would be atleast 5,000 times more powerful than the presentarrangement) in the hands of so skilful anexperimenter, we anticipate brilliant achievementsin a hitherto dark and unexplained region ofscience. Even with the poor means in his handshe has got excellent results, results which wouldbe creditable to the experimental skill of anyscientist.”

The diary dated 6th March 1899 recorded thefollowing “Went in the evening to see the case ofcystic tumor in Bechuram Chatterjee Street.Suresh’s (Dr. Suresh Prasad Adhikari) apparatusfor photographing Roentgen Rays did not act well.He said it has been spoiled by J.C. Bose.”

The Amrita Bazar Patrika (Press Report,1898) did not give detailed mechanism of thephotographic process used by Jagadish ChadraBose, but it was mentioned that the photographicprocess is a tedious one and reported that“Professor is completing an arrangement by whichan image may be projected on a screen and thusviewed directly by a number of curiousspectators”. Jagadish Chandra, being a scientistof excellent calibre, did not stop there by takingphotographs of different objects but startedinvestigating the action of X-rays on variousbodies.

Jagadish Chandra used bariumplatinocyanide screen to record X-ray photographas was done by Roentgen. He made bariumplatinocyanide screen in his laboratory as has beenrecorded by D.M. Bose (Bose, 1949). In his articlehe mentioned that Jagadish Chandra set a youngresearch assistant Nagendra Chandra Nag inPresidency College “to prepare bariumplatinocyanide screens with which he took X-rayphotographs of different objects like a humanhand, coins enclosed in a purse; some of them werereproduced in a juvenile monthly ‘Mukul’ forwhich he used often to write popular articles onscientific topics in Bengali.” However, our searchof Mukul during the period did not produce anysuch photographs.

The Amrita Bazar Patrika also reportedthat on the suggestion of Professor Bhaduri of theChemical Laboratory, Jagadish Chandra hassucceeded in finding another substance, PotassiumPlatinocyanide, “which is far more easily obtainedthan the corresponding Barium compound, isequally effective and hence may be substituted forBarium Platinocyanide in these researches.” The

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of X-ray apparatus using aRuhmkorff’s coil as a high voltage source as wasused by Roentgen.

It is evident that Jagadish Chandradeveloped an improved high voltage source to becoupled with the X-ray tube. But it is not knownfrom where Jagadish Chandra got the X-ray tube.Was it the same X-ray tube that was imported byMahendralal Sircar with which the improved highvoltage system was connected? This requiresfurther investigation because what was written inthe diary of Mahendralal Sircar is startling andhas enough reasons to dig further to find the truth.


report ended with “The researches, however, arenot yet completed and we await the result withinterest.” Unfortunately we did not know moreabout his X-ray research after that, one of thereasons being that Jagadish Chandra himselfbecame more interested in bio physics and left themainstream research in physics.

It will be proper here to mention thatPradyot Kumar Tagore, son of Sir JatindramohanTagore, who was trained in England onphotography, specially X-ray photography, teamedup with Father Lafont to take an excellentphotograph (Ghosh, 1991) of the right hand of Earlof Elgin, the then Viceroy of India, wearing rings.The picture was published in the Journal ofPhotographic Society of India in 1897.

7. BUILDING X-RAY MACHINE

It is interesting to note that although useof X-rays was started immediately within a fewmonths of the X-ray discovery by importing X-ray machine from abroad and a X-ray machinewas fabricated in the laboratory within about twoyears of the discovery, production of indigenousmachines in India took many more years. Itappears from the book published on the history ofX-rays entitled “The Trail of the Invisible Light”(Grigg, 1965) that the first X-ray machine in Indiawas built in India by Shri Bibhu Bilas Bhowmik(Fig. 7) of Calcutta a few years beforeindependence.

Bibhu Bilas Bhowmik got interested inX-ray machines while working as an assistant toDr. (Capt) Phanibhusan Mukherjee in the X-raydepartment of Patna Medical College while he wasa student of B.Sc. class. After his M.Sc. in AppliedPhysics in 1933 from Calcutta University he wentto London in 1934 on Guruprasanna Ghoshscholarship. After obtaining M.Sc. degree inengineering from London University he workedfor sometime in a reputed company in Londoninvolved in manufacturing X-ray equipment. He

then worked in Radium Institute in Paris and wasawarded a scholarship by French NationalScientific Research Fund and finally receivedhands-on training in a German company involvedin manufacturing electro-medical instruments andX-ray machines.

Fig. 6. Schematic diagram of Tesla coil coupled withRuhmkorff’s coil, the apparatus which JagadisChandra probably used as a high voltage source tothe X-ray tube

Fig. 7. Bibhubilas Bhowmik

After his return to India in 1939 he usedall his skills towards indigenous ventures. Hereceived support in this endeavour from Prof.Meghnad Saha, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, Dr.Shyama Prasad Mukhopadhaya and many others


and within a few years he was able to establish acompany of his own by the name “Radon House”which became the first X-ray manufacturing plantin India. Within a few years it started producinghigh voltage generators, became one of theimportant training centres to educate people onpractical engineering and started producing otherelectrical instruments indigenously. Fig. 8 showsthe appreciation that was received by the founderof Radon House from Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, IndiraGandhi, Bidhan Chandra Roy. In recognition ofhis scientific and technical talents, Indian NationalScience Academy (INSA) offered him itsfellowship (FNA), he became the President ofEngineering and Metallurgy Section of the 1955Indian Science Congress session. A postage stampwas also released by the Indian Government tocommemorate his endeavor (Fig. 9). Afterindependence, other companies also startedproducing X-ray equipment

5. CONCLUSION

X-ray was present since the time the workon discharge of gases started in the nineteenthcentury. William Goodspeed while working withdischarge tubes had unknowingly obtained an X-ray picture of metal objects (coins) before thediscovery of X-ray by Roentgen but was unableto explain its cause. It was Roentgen who was ableto relate the cause and effect and was awarded theNobel Prize for this discovery. The discovery ofX-rays generated a huge interest world-wideincluding in India. X-ray machine was importedto India within about six months of the discoveryof X-ray.Jagadish Chandra built X-ray apparatuson his own between 1897 and 1898 and took X-ray photograph of broken hand using his apparatuswith the help of Dr. Nilratan Sircar. First X-rayresearch in India was started at the IndianAssociation for the Cultivation of Science (IACS),Kolkata, after the discovery of X-rays, andproliferated from here to the other parts of thecountry.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The author is grateful to Prof. BarunKumar Chatterjee of Bose Institute, Dr. RajinderSingh of Germany, Dr. Gauri Roy, (daughter ofBibhubilas Bhowmilk) Formerly at the IndianAssociation for the Cultivation of Science andProf. Alok Mukherjee of Jadavpur University andmany others for providing important information

Fig. 8. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister ofIndia with his daughter Indira Gandhi watching theinstrument at Radon House. Seen in the picture areDr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, First Chief Minister ofWest Bengal and Bibhubilas Bhowmick (extremeleft). (Source: Bengali Magazine Desh)

Fig.9. Fascimile of Postage stamp released commemoratingBhowmik’s achievement, (Taken from: The Trailof the Invisible Light)


and valuable discussions. The author also thanksthe authorities of Bose Institute for giving accessto the news report published in The Amrita BazarPatrika in 1898.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biswas, Arun Kumar. Gleaning of the Past and the ScienceMovement (in the diaries of Drs. Mahendra Lal andAmritalal Sircar), The Asiatic Society, 2000.

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