The X-Rays That Helped Him See His Father's Death

The Roentgen or Röntgen X-ray machine

Here's a story I found interesting - yes, it's old, but perhaps timeless.

Back in 1901 a pauper hearing was scheduled in Augusta, but the man concerned, named as W.H Davis, thought they would commit him to the insane asylum. So, perhaps wisely, he absconded.

Mr Davis had been boarding at the Adams House in Cony Street. The owner got very concerned one night at Davis's behaviour, and wanted his insane boarder removed. The police were called and were told that he had become light-headed,

The police decided to take him away to the City Building where they locked him up in a cell and left him to his own reflections till morning.

Morning came and they questioned him as to why he was disturbing the peace at the boarding house.

"Why," said he, in a most matter-of-fact manner, "my father died last night at twelve-o-clock, and I had to make his last minutes easier."

The police thought this was simply the ravings of a man out of control. They handed Davis over to the overseer of the poor who made made enquiries about his past life.

His previous life was traced to being at Mattawamkeag. Communications were made and they then discovered that Davis's father had lived in the town of Winn.

Remarkably, the father had died on the stroke of midnight while his son was in Augusta and lost his mental balance and claimed that he was up making his father's last hours easier.

The officials were amazed but decided this was only a coincidence - one of those combinations of circumstances and insanity.

But I have found more to the story ...

Wilhem C Röntgen

"When Davis was asked how he knew that his father was dead, he said it was communicated to him by way of the X-ray process.

He then went on and detailed how he had been taking the treatment for a long time and had been greatly benefited. He told with great minuteness how the electric currents felt and what their effect was on his system.

So much in earnest was the prisoner that the police called in a local physician that he might hear the recital. The physician listened attentively and said at the conclusion that it was remarkable, in that Davis had exactly described the sensation and working of the subtle rays from the Roentgen machine." Source: Lewiston Evening Journal September 13, 1901.

So what was it? Telepathy? Spirit communication? And how does the Roentgen machine fit into the story? X-rays were said to have been discovered by Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, a German physicist, on November 8, 1895.

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