UT introduced the state’s medical profession and general public to X-ray technology as part of its exhibit at the Tennessee Centennial Exposition, held in Nashville in 1897. (The Exposition was originally planned for 1896, but financial and construction difficulties caused a year’s delay.) William Konrad Röntgen discovered the X-Ray in 1895, and UT was granted the exclusive right to demonstrate the machine at the exposition. The exhibit was along the same lines as the gold-medal winning exhibit at the Cotton States’ Exposition, occupying a large, prominent corner of about 1,500 square feet of the building devoted to hygiene and education. The X-Ray exhibit took an additional 420 square feet and proved to be one of the most popular attractions of the exposition. At the demonstration for the State Medical Society, X-rays were made of the hands of Governor Taylor and other dignitaries.
As head of the UT School of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Dr. Charles Perkins had introduced his students to X-Rays. He and Professor J. R. McColl (electrical engineering) were in charge of the exhibit, and engineering graduate student Arthur B. Reynders of Shelby County was in charge of the general demonstrations. A small charge was made for the pictures of the hands of exhibit visitors to defray the cost of operating the machine.
On October 26, as the exposition neared its close, award winners were announced. UT received a Diploma of Honor with Gold Medal in the hygiene category. The citation read: University of Tennessee, general exhibit: For exhibits in the various departments showing admirable methods of instruction and inventive genius on the part of professors and technical skill acquired by students. A gold medal was also recommended to this exhibit by the Committee on Education, but under the rule only one gold medal can be awarded to one exhibit. The medal was gold, two-and-one-half inches in diameter, with a figure of the theme-structure Parthenon on one side and the Tennessee State Seal on the other.