By Dale Dewar

Radiation was primordial, present since the Big Bang. Humans evolved with it. It could not be seen, felt, smelled or tasted. We didn’t even know it existed.

In November 1895, a German mechanical engineer and physicist, Wilhelm Roentgen produced and measured electromagnetic waves which, not knowing what they were, he called “x-rays”. Three months later, March 1896, a French engineer and physicist, Henri Becquerel found natural radiation that emanates from uranium salts.

The natural radiation, first thought to be x-rays, was soon parsed into alpha and beta particle radiation by Sir Ernest Rutherford and gamma rays by Paul Villard, French chemist and physicist.

The remarkable ability for x-rays to create images of bones led to widespread experimentation and medical diagnosis. The speed at which x-rays were adopted by physicians is exemplified by the opening of the first x-ray department in the Royal Infirmary in Scotland only one year later in 1896.

Radium was discovered by Madame Marie Curie when she was pursuing Becquerel’s “emanations” for her PhD thesis. It glowed in the dark by ionizing the air around it. It too enjoyed remarkable popularity and was incorporated into gels, creams, and drinking potions before its darker side was revealed.

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