Ueber eine neue Art von Strahlen

Edition

The offprint “Aus den Sitzungsberichten der Würzburger Physik.-medic. Gesellschaft 1895” (Würzburg: Verlag der Stahel’schen k. Hof- u. Univers.-Buch- u. Kunsthandlung, 10 pages, dated at the end “Dec. 1895”, circa 1896 according to Wikisource), in the transcription of German Wikisource, whose ten pages are all marked “fertig” (proofread twice), checked word by word against the page scans of the same offprint on Wikimedia Commons (Über_eine_neue_Art_von_Strahlen_01.jpg to _10.jpg, from the Posner Memorial Collection, Carnegie Mellon University). The line of provenance at the top of page 1 is the kicker, the title “W. C. Röntgen: Ueber eine neue Art von Strahlen.” is the title and author of the header, without the name and final point in the title, and “(Vorläufige Mittheilung.)” is the byline. The imprint at the foot of page 10 is left out, and so are page numbers; hyphens at line ends are rejoined, and words split across pages are whole. Three corrections to the transcription, from the scan: the dashes, set as en dashes in the transcription, are the long dashes of the print; “Blei in 1.5 mm Dicke” has a point in the print, not a comma; and the date line reads “Würzburg. Physikal. Institut der Universität. Dec. 1895.” with a point after “Würzburg”. The two footnotes, marked 1) on pages 1 and 2, are numbered 1 and 2 and follow the text; their page references (“pag. 4.”, “pag. 9.”) are those of the offprint and are kept. The table of section 5 is set as a table, without the handwritten margin notes of the scanned copy, and the items a) to d) of section 17 keep their letters. Misprints are kept, among them “Fluorenscenzschirm” on page 5 and “besondererer” on page 4. The radiograph at the top is not part of the offprint: it is the file First_medical_X-ray_by_Wilhelm_Röntgen_of_his_wife_Anna_Bertha_Ludwig’s_hand_-_18951222.jpg of Wikimedia Commons (3391 x 4876 px, a copy of the Wellcome Collection photograph V0029523 with scratches and spots cleaned), reduced to 2000 px wide; its caption was written for the poster from the description of the Commons file page.

Rights

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen died on 10 February 1923 (Wikidata, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q35149): his works are in the public domain in France since 1 January 1994 (70 years counted from 1 January 1924). The offprint was published in December 1895 and the radiograph was made in 1895, before 1 January 1931, so both are in the public domain in the United States.

Radiograph: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_medical_X-ray_by_Wilhelm_R%C3%B6ntgen_of_his_wife_Anna_Bertha_Ludwig%27s_hand_-_18951222.jpg, marked {{PD-old-100-expired}} on its Wikimedia Commons file page, retouched from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:X-ray_of_the_bones_of_a_hand_with_a_ring_on_one_finger_Wellcome_V0029523.jpg, marked {{PD-old-100-expired}} and {{cc-by-4.0}}, the Wellcome Images release of the photograph of the print (credit: Wellcome Collection). Page scans of the offprint: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:%C3%9Cber_eine_neue_Art_von_Strahlen. Röntgen was a German national; the text is in the public domain in France by the ordinary term.