For nearly a century, physicians have routinely taken x‐ray pictures of broken bones or wounds that contain foreign solid materials. So powerful is this diagnostic tool that not to employ it would seem almost medieval. Thus it comes as something of a surprise to recognize that, although there were numerous small‐scale medical applications almost immediately after Wilhelm Conrad Ro¨ntgen's discovery of x rays at the end of 1895, it took the carnage of World War I, two decades later, to make such radiography widespread.