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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

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Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything

The Essay: The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything: Episode 1: Anna Bertha's Hand

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Anna Bertha's Hand

Episode 1

Episode 1: Anna Bertha's Hand

The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, The Five Photographs that (You Didn't Know) Changed Everything, Anna Bertha's HandClose menu

Kelley Wilder discusses how the 1896 x-ray photograph of a hand changed medicine.

Kelley Wilder of De Montfort University, Leicester, discusses the 1896 x-ray photograph of Anna Bertha Ludwig Rontgen's left hand that changed medicine.

You won't find this photograph in a glossy coffee table book. It's not art and the person who took it doesn't feature in the Photographers Hall of Fame. But this picture has had an enormous impact on the world of medicine and our relationship with our bodies.
The photograph of Anna Bertha Ludwig Rontgen's left hand taken in 1896 astounded the scientific world and alarmed the public. For the scientists it signalled the beginning of medical radiography. For the public it gave rise to fears about intrusion and privacy in much the same way as the introduction of the TSA body scanner did in 2007. From medical imaging to airport security, Kelley Wilder shows how X-ray photography changed the world.

Kelley Wilder is Reader in Photographic History, De Montfort University, Leicester

Producer: Rosie Dawson.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Series focusing on historically important yet little-known photographs

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Episode 1: Anna Bertha's Hand

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