
Probably the most pleasing postcard in the company’s history
The beginning of X-ray technology at Siemens Healthineers!

High frequency laboratory, ca. 1910

Reiniger, Gebbert & Schall factory in Erlangen in the year 1896
I conducted my first experiments with the cathode ray tubes used in physics laboratories. As no one had any concept of the true nature of X-rays at that time, we tested every possibility, including whether the mysterious rays could be produced by overloading the filament of an ordinary light bulb. A number of light bulbs were burned out in the process – naturally, to no avail.“
Josef Rosenthals´memories of this pioneering era of X-ray technology at RGS
Original sketch from 1896 of the first X-ray tube from RGS. Röntgen found this tube “really very good.”

Josef Rosenthal sent this image of a 16-year-old girl’s head to Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in October 1896.
Probably the most pleasing postcard in the company’s history
“Your tubes are really very good”

Röntgen poses for a statue – in his hand is one of the smaller versions of the first medical X-ray tubes in the history of Siemens Healthineers.
Source: German Röntgen Museum