Essay: Uses of X-Rays in Medicine

Invention of X-Ray

Today, we hear about the term ‘x-ray’ in our everyday life all the time. X-ray has different usages in different fields and one of the most important areas that x-rays is used is medicine. X-ray is considered as one of the most important discoveries in the field of medicine in 19^th century. This paper will be about the founder of x-ray, how x-ray was discovered and in what ways x-ray is important for humanity in terms of the area of medicine.

X-ray was founded by a German scientist named Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen. Röntgen is known for the discovery of X-ray and also for being the first scientist who won the Nobel Physics Prize. Because of the founder of X-ray, it is also called as Röntgen ray. Röntgen was born in Remscheid in Germany on 1845. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen died 3 years after the death of his wife, Anna Bertha Ludwig, in 1923, at age 73. Röntgen did not take any patents for his discoveries and he gave all the money that he got from the Nobel Prize to University of Würzburg to be used in scientific research and studies. Both because of not making any savings from his scientific discoveries and research and the increasing inflation as a result of World War I, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen died with no money and he was dealing with financial difficulties in his last years.

Uses of X-Rays in Medicine

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen did not start his experiments to test and find the x-ray and the invention of X-ray was kind of a coincidence for Röntgen. Before discovering X-Ray, Röntgen was studying on luminescence event that happens in cathode rays. In a glass tube called ‘Crookes tube’, he was working with an experimental setup that consists of two electrodes. The electrons that broke from cathode hit the glass and light flashes called florescence was created. On 8 November 1895, he modified the test tube and covered it with a black cardboard in order to investigate the light permeability then he noticed a flash on the paper that was covered with barium platinocyanide. He repeated the experiment and came up with the same result everytime. Later, he repeated the experiment on his wife’s hands and saw that the bones and the wedding ring was visible whereas the flesh was not seen under this unknown ray. After that, he named this ray as X-Ray where X stands for ‘unknown’.

The discovery of X-Ray has a great importance and effect in the field of medicine. First of all and maybe most importantly, the technology of X-Ray helps the doctors to see the inside of the body without doing any extra surgical operations on the patient. This great advantage of X-Ray makes it very favorable both for the doctors and the patients because on one side it makes the job of doctors easier while giving them a high accuracy when diagnosing the disease and also on the other hand X-Ray eases the diagnosis and treatment process of the patients with no doubt. It makes the treatment process of the patients painless and the treatment becomes very easy for the patients. For more than one hundred years, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s discovery have been used for the diagnosis of several diseases such as tooth decays, bone cancer, tumors of breast, problems related with digestion, infections, items that are swallowed accidentally, arthritis, osteoporosis and so on. As seen from the list of problems and diseases where X-Ray is currently being used in an active way in order to solve them, it is obvious that X-Ray has become a very important treatment technique in the field of medicine in the past 120 years.

X-Rays in medicine

In addition to the diagnosis of diseases in a very easy way, X-Ray offers the diagnosis of the diseases in an advantageous way in terms of money, availability and time. Firstly, because of the above mentioned reasons, X-Ray makes diagnosis very fast compared to any other method that has been used until now since X-Ray requires only working with machines rather than working directly on human body and doing operations in order to make diagnosis. In addition to the operational issues of X-Ray and its fastness in terms of diagnosing diseases, X-Ray requires no recovery period and the patients who receive an X-Ray treatment can get back to their school or work right after the diagnosis and the recovery time of X-Ray is a very important development that is brought by Mr. Röntgen to the field of medicine. Secondly, X-Ray is very cheap compared to the other methods of diagnosing diseases. X-Ray only requires buying machine which lasts for a very long interval of time and it is cheap compared to the work it does. So, one other effect of X-Ray in medicine is the cheap diagnosis of diseases. Lastly, X-ray is today available in all around the world. The high rates of availability of X-Ray is also about the cheapness of it compared to the important job that it does. So, X-Ray is important in terms of choosing the right way of diagnosing the diseases of the patients and in this way X-Ray becomes very important especially in the cases of emergency as it does not require much time.

X-Rays Essay Conclusion

To conclude, the discovery of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen has become a very important tool for the field of medicine from the time it was discovered and to our time. X-Ray is a very valuable way of diagnosing the diseases because of its advantages and effects on the field of medicine. By the aid of X-Ray, less time is required for doctors to make diagnosing so faster diagnosing is made by X-Rays and it requires no recovery time and it offers painless diagnosis so it is preferred both by doctors and patients. In addition, it is cheap and also available in all around the world. Because of all these reasons, today, X-Ray has a very important place in medicine.