Micro-Radiography
Pierre Goby · Archives of The Roentgen Ray · 1913
THE use of the X rays has already completely revolutionised the microscopic diagnosis of surgical and medical diseases ; but till recently it had never •occurred to anyone to apply radiography to the examination of microscopic objects.In 1912, however, I showed a series of micro-radiographs at the Association Francaise pour l'Avancement de Science at Nimes, and'again at the Academy of Sciences at Paris in May, 1913.This new method of investigation is destined to render the greatest service to natural science in microscopic biology, more especially where the object is opaque, and can only be examined under the microscope in thin sections, a method which is slow and costly and, in addition, destructive to the preparation.On the other hand, micro-radiography is a veritable optical dissection, easy, rapid, and conservative.It has already proved of the greatest service in geology, where it permits the examination of internal details and superpositions of the smallest foraminifera and diatoms.From a tiny pinch of foraminiferous sand, we have been able to discover many new species, and that without the tedious process of section-cutting.In conchology we are-; 1 easily able to follow the different phases of growth and development of the : shell, and in embryology the differentiation of the tissues may be made out with the greatest ease and exactitude.In comparative anatomy, microradiography enables us to study the development of the bones of the smallest animals, from birth to the adult condition, the osseous structure, the skin, and even the details of the flesh and muscles.In botany it allows us to differentiate organs and tissues opaque to ordinary light, thanks to the