1. Interaction of X-rays with matter

What book on X-rays doesn't mention this in its introduction? The use of X-ray imaging for medical purposes goes back as far as its discovery by Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen in 1895. However, this rapid start was followed by a long period during which it was limited to radiography or primitive forms of fluoroscopy (also known as radioscopy), using photographic plates to record still images and, for moving images, fluorescent plates that practitioners read at the precise moment they were irradiated: they were themselves highly exposed to radiation.

During this first half-century, the nature of X-rays was understood (foreseen as early as 1916 by Albert Einstein, Compton radiation was only demonstrated in 1922), as...