“I Have Seen My Death:” The X-Ray And A New Vision Of The Corporeal Landscape

This paper details how X-ray vision shifted perceptions of time, mortality, and death through its ability to image the body’s interior landscape. In December 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen produced the world’s first radiograph, a ghostly image of his wife Anna’s hand, depicting her bones and the prominent ring she wore on her third finger. Upon seeing it, Anna shuddered, exclaiming, “I have seen my death.” Röntgen’s new imaging technologies, produced through penetrating electromagnetic radiation, passed seemingly effortlessly through skin and muscle to visualise the bones and interior of the body. Previously, this could only be achieved through invasive incision. This new gaze, I argue, exposed the body’s fallibility; it was no longer cohesive and impenetrable but instead vulnerable to the phantasmagoric forces, a notion reinforced by Röntgen’s naming them after the mathematical designation for the unknown, “x.” Similarly, I argue that X-ray’s new vision worked against the commonly held conception that technology would solve the problems of the future. With a deluge of advances— like railways and electricity— technological progress was viewed favourably as a cure-all for the ailments of the present day and the days to come. The X-ray, though, provided a stark contrast, making it evident that technology could not save us from the looming and unavoidable eventuality of death. These arguments present a new conception of Röntgen’s discovery and its impact, placing particular value on its effect beyond medical applications.