Edison Fluoroscope No. 588

Description:

Edison Fluoroscope No. 588, with tapering leather-covered wood body, rear 4 1/2 x 6 1/2-inch ground-glass screen, viewing hood with felt eye-pad, and turned wood handle, lg. 9 in.; and a Look Parallax Panoramagram (three-dimensional photograph) showing a bust of Thomas Edison surrounded by five of his key inventions: the electric lamp, stock-ticker, motion-picture projector, phonograph and fluoroscope.

Note: Within weeks of Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen publishing his report "On a New Kind of Rays" on December 28th 1895, the news of his discovery of X-rays had spread around the world. In 1896, Thomas Edison, realizing the potential medical uses, began work on the fluoroscope as a means of viewing X-ray images. Edison's invention featured a hand-held leather-covered box resembling a contemporary stereoscope, with a viewing screen made out of tungstate of calcium (replaced on this example with ground-glass). Unusually, Edison chose not to patent his device, preferring to leave it in the public domain for immediate medical application; the fluoroscope was soon put to use by surgeons performing the first X-ray operations in America.

Unfortunately this new radiation had other effects on the people who experimented with it. The electrical engineer Elihu Thomson deliberately exposed one of his fingers to X-rays in order to observe the resultant burns. Edison's assistant Clarence Dally was also affected and eventually died as a result of radiation. Maybe it was as a result of these and other early casualties that few examples of the Edison fluoroscope are thought to have survived.
Estimate $3,000-4,000

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