Radiography

The Electrical Review presents to its readers this week an unusually brilliant symposium of literature on the latest developments in radiography. Mr. Tesla supplements his previous communications to this journal with further remarks on his very interesting and valuable scientific work. The results achieved by Professor Enrico Salvioni, of Perugia, Italy, are chronicled by a well-known newspaper man who interviewed him for the Electrical Review. Messrs. Scribner and McBerty, of Chicago, send us an important communication on the source of the X rays, on which Prof. Elihu Thomson makes some very interesting comments, and at the same time refers to his own work in a similar direction. Altogether, the past week has been a very interesting one as far as the X rays are concerned, and as usual the Electrical Review presents the latest thought and achievement of the brightest minds that are at work on this very interesting topic. Our readers will appreciate the fact that while the real source and nature of the X ray are still a matter of speculation and doubt, important practical results have already been achieved in the development of Salvioni's cryptoscope and Edison's fluoroscope. These are probably but the primary steps in the evolution of a device which will be of untold value in the future practice of surgery and medicine. In the meantime the ablest minds in the electrical field are steadily at work endeavoring to determine the nature of a phenomenon which, according to at least one experimenter, enables solids to pass through solids.

Hardly had Tesla announced the important results of his investigations on reflection when he followed it up with a practical demonstration of the value of these results, as will be seen from the illustration on another page. The time is materially reduced, and a distance of four feet is, for such a radiograph, really remarkable, and shows the extraordinary performances of the Tesla coil. While the results which he describes in his present communication are very wonderful, there is still to be considered his statement, before made, that he is availing himself at the present time of only a small part of the capacity of his apparatus. The impressions obtained with short exposures by the help of a phosphorescent powder are not the less interesting and remarkable.