Item MM 117225 Digital Image - X-ray Department, Melbourne Hospital, circa 1897

Summary

Digital image reproduced form a half-plate glass negative of the first x-ray equipment at Melbourne Hospital, circa 1897. Dr. Frederick John Clendinnen, pioneering Melbourne radiologist, and first radiologist at Melbourne Hospital, is operating the equipment, observed by a nurse and other doctors.

Description of Content

Dr Frederick J. Clendinnen operating Melbourne's Hospital's first x-ray equipment. Two other doctors and a nurse observe him using the apparatus, apparently on a male patient's arm or hand.

Physical Description

Digital black and white image

Significance

Dr Frederick J. Clendinnen established the first x-ray equipment at Melbourne Hospital in Lonsdale Street, Melbourne in 1896, not long after Wilhelm Roentgen had first demonstrated x-rays in Germany in late 1895. This image depicts the first equipment at Melbourne Hospital, the major teaching and research hospital in Melbourne.

Frederick John Clendinnen (1860-1913) was a pioneering radiologist in Melbourne. He began taking x-rays in 1896, shortly after Wilhelm Roentgen's discovery of x-rays in 1895. Clendinnen established a laboratory at the back of his home and medical practice in Williams Road, Hawksburn, In 1896 he became the first radiologist at Melbourne Hospital.