Lubricating oil kit for 16mm cine cameras

Cardboard box containing glass bottle of lubricating oil for 16mm cine cameras, Victor Animatograph Corporation, Davenport, Iowa, with screwdriver, brush and oil can, owned by radiologist Russell John Reynolds (1880-1964)

Russell John Reynolds was an internationally renowned radiographer and specialist in the field of cineradiography (moving image X-ray films). While still at school, he – with the assistance of his GP father and family friend Sir William Crookes – constructed a fully functioning X-ray machine just months after German scientist Wilhelm Röntgen first described the ‘new type of ray’ in late 1895.

Around 1922, Reynolds, by then a full-time radiologist, began tackling the challenge of creating X-ray films of moving body parts. He was a pioneer in photofluorography (filming moving X-ray images from fluorescent screens), constantly modifying his techniques to reduce the exposure times needed to capture a bright enough picture. By 1935, he had filmed almost all the body’s joints at speeds of up to 12 frames per second – and persuaded optical instrument maker W. Watson and Sons to develop the first commercial cineradiography machine.

This lubricating oil kit for 16mm cine cameras was donated to the Science Museum Group as part of Reynolds’ personal archive documenting his life and work, 1900-1964.