Model OM1 X-ray tube

Late in 1895 the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, conducting experiments on electrical discharges in rarefied gases in a Crookes tube, revealed the existence of an unknown radiation that he called ‘X-rays’. When he placed his hand between the tube and a screen, he saw that only his bones and not the less dense parts of his hand were visible. Doctors rapidly began using these new rays to observe sick organs and detect foreign bodies such as bullets. This X-ray tube model was made by Établissements Hector Pilon at the beginning of the First World War. Thousands were supplied to the Service de Santé de l’armée française (French Army Health Service) and the Allies. Its original features are the metallic reservoir containing the water used to cool the tungsten anticathode generating the X-rays, and also the form of the electrodes.