THE X-RAYS IN THE WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11241, 9 December 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE X-RAYS IN THE WAR.

HOW THEY WILL BENEFIT THE WOUNDED.

A NEW ELECTRICAL MACHINE. 4.MONG those who have left England for the front is Major W. C. Beevor, Royal Army Medical Corps, who is taking with him a Rontgen-Rav outfit, which is likely to be of the greatest value in the localisation of bullets during the Transvaal campaign. Besides his Rontgcn-Ray apparatus, Major Beevor is taking with him three cameras and a cinematograph. Major Beevor is one of the very few British officers who have had experience of the X-Rays in actual warfare. He was in the Tirah campaign, and during ,he time that he was on active service in India he employed the wonderfill ravs with great effect on wounded soldiers. It will be remembered that Radiography also played a part in the last Soudan campaign. By means of the rays the Medical Staff were enabled to locate bullets which no amount of probing would have discovered; and it is quite certain that by their use a verv great deal of suffering was spared the soldiers, many valuable limbs, and even manv lives, were saved. In no future campaign can the X-Rays be absent, for their value to the army surgeon has been abundantly manilested. . . Major Beevor will make practical trial in the Transvaal for the first time of a new form of machine for generating electricity, invented by W. R. Pidgeon, of the kind known as "Influence Machines." There are many forms of electrical influence machines in existence, but the best known is undoubtedly that devised by Mr. James Wimshurst. This consists of two or more circular plates of varnished glass, which are geared to rotate ill opposite directions. A number of sectors of metal coil are cemented to the front of the front plate and to the back of the back plate; these sectors serve both as carriers and inductors. Across the front is fixed an uninsulated diagonal conductor, carrying at its ends neutralising brushes which touch the front sectors as they pass. Across the back, but sloping the other way, is a second diagonal conductor, with brushes that touch the sectors on the hinder plate. When the machine is rotated electricity is produced. Mr. I'idgeon has modelled his machine on that of Mr. Wimshurst, but,he lias improved upon it, and Mr. Pidgeon's machine has in turn been altered bv Major lieevor for the special purposes for which lie will require it. The great thing about this new form of influence machine is that it produces electricity almost as soon as it is started, and its output is large, and that it is not greatly affected by dampness or dust.

The influence machine has, if we mistake not, been employed before, both in the Spanish-American and in the Grteco-Turkish Wars. Knowedge of the Rontgen Rays was then very iimiled, and the science of Radiography had not reached the state of perfection in which it now is. There is every reason to believe that the influence machine will be of great sen-ice in the present campaign. In its improved form it can stand a good deal of rough usage, and it is not affected bv the climatic conditions likely to be found in the Transvaal. The great" advantage of the influence machine is that it is at all times ready for X-Rays work, by merelv turning the handle or starting a motor, The wires are led directly from the machinc to the Crookes tube, 'and no batteries, Leydon jars, or induction coils are required.—Daily News.