Considered Dr. C. Edmond Kells greatest contribution to dentistry was the application of x-ray photography, or radiography. In early 1896, Kells read about the discovery of the x-ray by a German physicist named Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen. Kells ordered the needed equipment to build his own x-ray machine. Buying large sheets of x-ray film, which he then cut down to the proper size and wrapping the film in thin rubber he was able to keep the film dry inside the mouth. Using modeling compound to make an x-ray film holder he created a way to steady the film inside the patient's mouth, without using a person's fingers to hold the film in place.
Using his dental assistant as his test subject, and though unsure of how long it took to expose a film, he became the first to take a dental x-ray on a live patient. In July of 1896 just eight months after Roentgen's discovery of x-ray, Kells demonstrated the use of the radiography in dentistry to the Southern Dental Association.
At age 40, when Kells first began his work with x-rays, he was unaware of the unseen danger of cumulative doses of radiation. He often held the films in place with his own fingers. By age 50, he had developed cancer in his right hand. Over the next 20 years, Kells endured 42 operations eventually losing his hand, his arm, and his shoulder. On May 7, 1928, at age 72, he committed suicide - due to great suffering.