Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 2084.4

WILLIAM J. (WILLIAM JAMES) MORTON (1846-1920) The X-ray; or, Photography of the invisible and its value in surgery. American Technical Book Co. 1896 1st edition. 196 p., [32] leaves of plates : ill. 20 cm.

Among the early printed references to X-rays in America, as well as one of the first books on the medical applications of X-ray technology. “A measure of the serious and sensational interest in the Rontgen rays can be drawn from the fact that during the single first year of the knowledge of their existence, 1896, more than a thousand books, pamphlets, and articles appeared in the public press on this subject” (Dibner, The New Rays, of Professor Rontgen, p.36). The present work is included in Dibner’s select list of 24 early publications ‘of special significance’ dealing with X-ray technology. Only three other works treating the medical aspects of X-rays are noted: Francis H. William’s brief paper “Notes on X-Rays in Medicine,” published in Transactions of the Association of American Physicians in April, 1896; W.W. Keen’s article “The Use of Rontgen X-Rays in Surgery,” which appeared in McClure’s Magazine, May 1896; and David Walsh’s Rontgen Rays in Medical Work appeared at London in 1897. Professor of Electrotherapeutics and Diseases of the Mind and the Nervous System in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, William J. Morton is credited by Rutkow with producing the first dental radiographs in America, two of which are reproduced in the present work (figs. 67 & 78). With a fine photo-plate of Morton and Hammer intensely occupied in their laboratory.

Cited references: Waller 6692b

John Martin M.D. Endowment