X Ray

1995: 150th Anniversary Wilhelm Röntgen (Designer - Zauner)

Last week while browsing my German stamps for the Sunday blog post this strip of Xs hit me in the eye and I did a little happy dance for there would be no cudgeling of brains required for a tricky letter of the alphabet.  A celebration of the birth of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen who famously produced and detected X-rays on 8th November 1895, isolated himself in his lab to experiment further on various objects and then presented his results on 28th December 1895.  He had a helper on hand in more ways than one in the person of his wife Anna Bertha for the the first medical x-ray he took was of Mrs Röntgen's hand.  It is thought he took many pictures of her hand but only one survives, however it is not the one shown on the stamp.  The first x-ray to be made public was the hand of his friend Professor Albert Von Kölliker.

1978-79: Industry and Technology (Design - Boat Knoblauch and Paul Beer)

In Germany X-Rays are called Röntgen rays (no use whatsoever for this week's letter X!) and as can be seen on the bottom of the stamp the name of an x-ray machine in Geman is a Röntgengerat.

1978-79: Industry and Technology (Design - Boat Knoblauch and Paul Beer)

 A different type of x-ray machine can also be found in one of the buildings here in Frankfurt airport.

Röntgen and Rays imagined in 1896 by George Yost Coffin

The Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter X - for X-Ray - See It On A Postcard.