Imagine if after inventing the x-ray, they tried to put x-rays everywhere to try to promote x-rays. This post isn't a metaphor that happened. This post ain't some analogy for current events. I just wanted to say in 1896 there was a massive craze for x-rays and they were placed everywhere
For many science-obsessed Victorians, X-rays were not just a fun novelty, but a potential miracle cure.
X-ray came at just the right time and had just the right properties to be a sensation:
It came at the very close of the Victorian era, a period whose science consisted in large part of making "hidden worlds" visible to the public for the first time, so it was remarkable, but fit within a well-established cultural trend worn out by amateur microscopy, photography, kinetoscope, cathode rays, etc.
If you could operate a camera, you could operate an x-ray
It seemingly confirmed the premise of fifty years of "spirit photography" that invisible phenomena could be captured on photographic plates
The association with spiritualism was also helped along by the macabre nature of the pictures it took (Anna Röntgen even described it as showing the ghost of her hand)
It was completely unexpected at a time when scientific novelties were a matter of widespread public spectacle
