News
March 21, 1896 – Pioneer in record time: The first Siemens x-ray tube with regulated vacuum patented
X-ray lamp, German Reich Patent No. 91028
Siemens has always seen itself as a pioneer – also in the field of medical engineering. An advertising brochure in the 1930s claimed: “The importance of an industrial company isn’t determined by its economic, manufacturing and marketing abilities alone, but basically by the pioneering achievements it contributes to the markets it serves.” And it added: “Pioneering work not only provides the basis for production, but also ensures a lead that benefits both the buyer and the prosperity of the factory.” In other words: The success of Siemens medical engineering has been traditionally based on its research successes and its close contacts with leading physicians and physicists.
An early example of this successful research activity is the first patent for an x-ray tube received by Siemens & Halske (S&H). On March 24, 1896, a mere three months after the discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in Wurzburg, Germany, in 1895, S&H received a patent for “a new x-ray lamp with regulated vacuum” under patent number D.R.P. [German Reich Patent] 91028. The innovation: For the first time it was possible to manually regulate gas pressure in the x-ray tube so that tube wear was reduced and the pressure could be adjusted to ensure “the most intensive radiation and the sharpest images.” The potential use of the newly patented object was also clearly defined: “Due to the intensity of its radiation, our x-ray lamp is particularly suited for the radioscopic screening of complete adult bodies.”
This innovation was preceded by intensive research work in the Siemens labs in Berlin, where employees had immediately begun reproducing Röntgen’s experiments after the announcement of the discovery in January 1896. Since Röntgen himself refused to take out patents on his own discovery, anyone could work with the new kind of rays or exploit them commercially. In the Siemens labs, interest quickly focused on “perfecting the process and adapting it to practical needs.” As a result of the major media interest in the new rays, a number of cross-regional newspapers reported in detail in February 1896 on the experiments being conducted by Siemens.
Incidentally, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen himself had little to do with the subsequent development of his discovery by Siemens. Yet the company always felt gratitude toward the great scientist – ultimately he had laid the cornerstone for a business segment that remains a success to this day. Reflecting this gratitude, S&H made a major contribution for a bust of the now world-famous scientist on the occasion of Röntgen’s 70th birthday on March 27, 1915. And when Röntgen suffered from deafness in his old age, Siemens also helped out: At the request of Carl Friedrich von Siemens, the 77-year-old researcher was given a “hard-of-hearing apparatus” in the summer of 1922. Röntgen called the gift “an extremely friendly present and one of special value for me.”
Today the broad Siemens product spectrum in the field of radiology “offers the right system for every budget, from fully digitized systems with flat-screen technology […] to mobile x-ray systems.”.
Dr. Florian Kiuntke
Further reading
F. Prellwitz, Zur Geschichte der medizinischen Röntgenröhren, Erlangen 1979