Radiation in Print: Popularizing X-rays in the Mass Media of Early Twentieth-Century Japan

Abstract

What kinds of images and ideas about radiation could a Japanese public-people outside specialist circles of scientists and doctors-access before 1945? Following the atomic bombings, Japanese images of radiation became predominantly tied to memories of war devastation and disaster-Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the cases of the Lucky Dragon No. 5 exposure at Bikini Atoll, the Tōkaimura criticality accident, and most recently, the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown. But what preceded those images? This paper examines the agents and media involved in the production and circulation of information around radiation, primarily X-rays (rentogen), in early twentieth-century Japan. It analyzes the significance of key trends in four major serial publications of this period.