100 YEARS AGO

We learn from the Lancet that the use of Röntgen rays as a means of certifying the existence of death was demonstrated at a recent meeting of the Biological Society of Paris. M. Bougarde showed three photographs of the thorax, two of them from living persons and the third from a corpse, all taken by the X-rays. In the two first the different thoracic organs and the walls of the thorax itself exhibited a hazy outline, so that their limits could not be exactly made out. This, of course, was owing to the natural movements of the parts, the pulsations of the heart and the great vessels, and the movements of the diaphragm. Even when the subjects held their breath so as to minimise movement as much as possible the outlines were still hazy. ⃛ In the radiograph of the corpse, however, the appearance was quite different, for all the organs had sharp and well-defined edges.

From Nature 19 May 1898.

50 YEARS AGO

Although lip-service is commonly paid to the value of research, it is seldom that its direct benefits are so attractively displayed to the general public as has been done in the “Darkness into Daylight” Exhibition at the Science Museum, London, S.W.7. ⃛ We are all of us aware of the progress and achievements made during the past century. But how many realize that since only 1921 the efficiency of the ordinary 60-watt electric lamp has increased by 55 per cent while the cost has decreased by 75 per cent. ⃛ We can see the dawn of electric lighting with Swan's invention of 1878, its temporary eclipse by the Welsbach incandescent gas mantle and then the final triumph of the electric filament lamp. ⃛ As is perhaps inevitable, the accent of the Exhibition is on fluorescent lighting, and as one passes through this section one is forced to wonder whether the life of the filament lamp is doomed and whether it will eventually be replaced, like the oil lamp and the gas lamp before, by the low-pressure fluorescent tubes now being so widely used. Hitherto, these fluorescent lamps have only been available in lengths of 4 and 5 ft., but the recent announcement that 2-ft. tubes of 20- and 40-watt ratings will soon be introduced suggests a much wider application for domestic purposes.

From Nature 22 May 1948.