The Hand Of Mrs. Wilhelm Röntgen, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, 1895
This is the first medical X-ray ever to be taken. There were countless pictures of Mrs. Röntgen’s hand but this is the one that has survived over time. Wilhelm had spent weeks working in his lab, experimenting with a cathode tube that emitted different frequencies of electromagnetic energy. Some, he noticed, appeared to penetrate solid objects and expose sheets of photographic paper. He used the strange rays, which he aptly dubbed x-rays, to create shadowy images of the inside of various inanimate objects and then, finally, one very animate one.