science · 27 February 1951 · 73 years ago
death
Died 27 Feb 1951 at age 91 (born 30 Jul 1859).
American physicist and administrator who is credited with making the first X-ray photograph in the U.S. on about 12 Jan 1896, while he was a professor of physics and astronomy at Davidson College, North Carolina. Shortly after Röntgen's announcement of his discovery of X-rays, Smith copied the technique. Smith made an X-ray photograph of a bullet he had shot into the hand of a cadaver, that was published in the Charlotte Observer (27 Feb 1896). Shortly thereafter, he made the first clinical use of X-rays to locate a thimble stuck in a young girl's throat, enabling its surgical removal. Smith became the college president in 1901 and oversaw adding a new science building. He established an electric light plant. Near the end of WW I, his idea to inform the German population of President Wilson's peace plans was adopted. Millions of messages carried by gas-filled balloons were released from France into the winds over Germany.
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