Death of Wilhelm Röntgen

Wilhelm Röntgen died on 10 February 1923 in Munich, aged 77. A German physicist, Röntgen discovered X-rays in November 1895 at the University of Würzburg while experimenting with cathode-ray tubes. He noticed that a mysterious radiation made a fluorescent screen glow and passed through soft tissue, and he soon produced an image of the bones of his wife's hand. The discovery was announced within weeks and transformed medicine, enabling doctors to see inside the body without surgery. In 1901 he received the first Nobel Prize in Physics. He declined to patent his discovery, believing that it belonged to humanity, and he also refused to name the rays after himself in English-speaking countries.

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