Röntgen’s first x-ray is included in UNESCO Memory of the World programme
Submitted by Dr Arpan Banerjee, current chair of ISHRAD and past chair of the British Society for the History of Radiology, and Dr Uwe Busch, director of the Deutsches Röntgen Museum.
The United Nations and its specialist agency UNESCO were founded in 1945 after World War II and, over the last 80 years, UNESCO has fostered educational, scientific and cultural development of nations with a mission of maintaining peace and cooperation between all nations with an attempt to promote international cultural awareness between countries.
The first director general of UNESCO in 1952 was Julian Huxley, the famous British evolutionary biologist, prolific author and part of the distinguished Huxley family. His brothers included author of Brave New World Aldous Huxley and Nobel Laureate in Medicine Andrew Huxley.
In addition to supporting many science, educational and cultural projects in a variety of countries worldwide and setting up a world heritage list in 1993, UNESCO decided to embark on a project titled ‘Memory of the World’. This programme selects archives of human achievements and library collections worldwide that UNESCO believes should be digitised and included as part of mankind’s heritage for all to share. On its website it states that the UNESCO Memory of the World programme is a global initiative to safeguard the world’s documentary heritage against collective amnesia, the ravages of war, decay and deterioration. Every year projects and archives of materials for inclusion in a range of categories, including science and the humanities, are submitted to the international advisory board committee for consideration, with only a small success rate for applicants worldwide. About 70 to 80 projects of documentary heritage are chosen annually from a vast number of submitted applications.
This year, a team from the Deutsches Röntgen Museum and partners including ISHRAD (International Society for the History of Radiology) nominated the Röntgen archives including the first x-ray of Anna Bertha’s hand for consideration. Anna Bertha was Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen’s wife and was the subject of the world’s first x-ray. Letters of support and justification for inclusion were sent to UNESCO. Th e projects submitted were competitively reviewed. We are pleased to report that Röntgen’s first radiograph and an x-ray of Röntgen’s rifle were accepted. The museum in Röntgen’s birthplace Remscheid is the only museum dedicated to the life of the first Physics Nobel Prize winner, in 1901, and it houses a vast archive and memorabilia.
It is a fitting tribute that Röntgen’s great legacy of x-rays for mankind and its subsequent effect on medical practice has been recognised by UNESCO in this way.
Picture: x-rays of Anna Bertha’s hand, left, and of Röntgen’s rifle. Pictures courtesy of Deutsches Röntgen Museum.
Read this report on page 10 of the May 2025 issue of RAD Magazine.
