Fluorescent lamp began with the Geissler tube continued as even better vacuums were produced. The most famous was the evacuated tube used for scientific research by William Crookes. That tube was evacuated by the highly effective mercury vacuum pump created by Hermann Sprengel. Research conducted by Crookes and others ultimately led to the discovery of the electron in 1897 by J. J. Thomson and X-rays in 1895 by Wilhelm Roentgen. But the Crookes tube, as it came to be known, produced little light because the vacuum in it was too good and thus lacked the trace amounts of gas that are needed
Anton Wilhelm Plaz Naturforscher. Anton Wilhelm Plaz Anton Wilhelm Plaz (1 January 1708, Leipzig – 26 February 1784, Leipzig) was a German physician and botanist. From 1723 he studied medicine at the universities of Leipzig and Halle, receiving his doctorate at the latter institution in 1728. In 1733 he became an associate professor of botany at Leipzig, where afterwards, he successively served as a full professor of botany (1749–54), physiology (1754–58), anatomy and surgery (1758), pathology (1758–73) and therapy (1773–84). From 1773 to 1784 he was dean to the medical faculty at the university. He was a member of the Römisch Kaiserlichen Akademie