Credit: © The Royal Society
Image number: RS.9839
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X-ray photograph of the hand of Arthur James Balfour
Date
6 May 1896
Sitter
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour (1848 - 1930, British) , Prime Minister
Creator
Alan Archibald Campbell Swinton (1863 - 1930, British) , Electrical engineer
Object type
Material
Dimensions
height (print): 233mm
width (print): 184mm
height (mount): 315mm
width (mount): 264mm
width (print): 184mm
height (mount): 315mm
width (mount): 264mm
Subject
Content object
Description
X-ray image of Lord Balfour’s left hand showing its bones and a faint outline of the soft tissue of his fingers, darkening towards his hand and wrist.
Signed and dated on the print, below the thumb: “Arthur James Balfour May 6th 1896”. Inscribed in pencil verso: “Taken by A.A.Campbell Swinton at the Royal Society’s Soiree held on 6 May 1896.” With a paper label verso, stamped: “FROM MR.SWINTONS PHOTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY, 66, VICTORIA STREET, S.W.”. Annotated in ink below this “negative no.77.”
The gift of prints is noted in Council Minutes: “Mr.A.A.C.Swinton has presented the Society with a series of Rontgen ‘Photographs’ taken at the May Soiree, and thanks have been given to him for them.” [Royal Society Council Minutes, Printed, CMP/7, meeting of 29 October 1896, p.294.]
The exhibit from which this image is a demonstration was outlined in the Descriptive catalogue. The Royal Society. Conversazione, May 6th, 1896. Burlington House. (Royal Society, London, 1896), p.3. “Practical demonstration of Rontgen’s new photography, with experiments and exhibition of results. When a suitable Crookes’ vacuum tube is excited, the invisible radiations that proceed from the point where the cathode rays strike a solid substance, will impress photographic plates, will cause certain salts to fluoresce, and will discharge electrified bodies...Since bone is more opaque to these rays than tissue, it is possible by their means to obtain shadow photographs of the bones in the living body...Similarly other hidden objects, such as the coins in a purse, the contents of closed boxes...can be rendered apparent.”
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Ear of Balfour, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1888 and served as a Vice-President 1912-1914.
Signed and dated on the print, below the thumb: “Arthur James Balfour May 6th 1896”. Inscribed in pencil verso: “Taken by A.A.Campbell Swinton at the Royal Society’s Soiree held on 6 May 1896.” With a paper label verso, stamped: “FROM MR.SWINTONS PHOTOGRAPHIC LABORATORY, 66, VICTORIA STREET, S.W.”. Annotated in ink below this “negative no.77.”
The gift of prints is noted in Council Minutes: “Mr.A.A.C.Swinton has presented the Society with a series of Rontgen ‘Photographs’ taken at the May Soiree, and thanks have been given to him for them.” [Royal Society Council Minutes, Printed, CMP/7, meeting of 29 October 1896, p.294.]
The exhibit from which this image is a demonstration was outlined in the Descriptive catalogue. The Royal Society. Conversazione, May 6th, 1896. Burlington House. (Royal Society, London, 1896), p.3. “Practical demonstration of Rontgen’s new photography, with experiments and exhibition of results. When a suitable Crookes’ vacuum tube is excited, the invisible radiations that proceed from the point where the cathode rays strike a solid substance, will impress photographic plates, will cause certain salts to fluoresce, and will discharge electrified bodies...Since bone is more opaque to these rays than tissue, it is possible by their means to obtain shadow photographs of the bones in the living body...Similarly other hidden objects, such as the coins in a purse, the contents of closed boxes...can be rendered apparent.”
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Ear of Balfour, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1888 and served as a Vice-President 1912-1914.
Associated place