Offprint of Rontgen's announcement of the discovery of the X-ray, Original paper wrappers, first issue of the "2. Auflage," with the wrappers of the first separate printing dated "Ende 1895".

This is a rare copy, its not known whether the publisher used the old wrappers to speed publication or if they remained from the first separatum and were utilized before the new wrappers as a matter of economy, a title page, with the designation "2. Auflage" and dated 1896, was added to the ten pages of text bringing the total number of pages to twelve, the text is identical in type with the first separatum, apart from some minor punctuation changes in the heading above the text title and the deletion of the printer and publisher line at the end." H.S. Klickstein, W.C. Röntgen.

"Aside from its obvious applications, Roentgen's discovery galvanized the world of physics and led to a rash of further discoveries that so completely overturned the old concepts of the science, that the discovery of X-rays is sometimes considered the first stroke of the Second Scientific Revolution. (The First Scientific Revolution is, of course that which included Galileo and his experiments on falling bodies). Within a matter of months, investigations of X rays led to the discovery of radioactivity by Becquerel....The importence of the discovery was well recognized in its own time. In 1896 Roentgen shared the Rumford Medal with Lenard and in 1901, when Nobel Prizes were set up.the first to be honoured with a Nobel Prize in Physics was Roentgen." (Asimov). Garrison & Morton No 2683

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (b.27 March 1845 – d.10 February 1923) was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, in 1901 Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize awarded in physics "in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him."