3 ms·
The standards of safety and ethical engineering were very different during that time. I don't think William Osman is building an unsafe X-Ray, whereas I doubt t
by whymauri 5y ago
The standards of safety and ethical engineering were very different during that time. I don't think William Osman is building an unsafe X-Ray, whereas I doubt that Victorians understood the full impact and implications of the early X-Rays.
- buescher 5y agoThe point was that building a simple x-ray device is about as technically far-out as say, winding your own transformer. Sure, not too many people do it, but it's not exactly on the forefront of technology either. To your point, safety standards have evolved enormously in the last thirty years even. You don't get to modern safety standards by accident or good intentions or earnest application of the best practices you know. From that I would assume Osman built an X-ray that was potentially unsafe in ways he did not anticipate. That is, it would not have been a suitable replacement for a commercial X-ray compliant with FDA regulations. To be fair, I haven't watched the video but I did read the summaries and it sounds like Osman had a healthy and reasonable regard for the risk of building and operating his device, as manifest in the fact that he didn't operate it much and decomissioned it afterwards. And also, we know for a fact that the Victorians injured themselves with X-rays. Nothing to doubt or wonder about.