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The Cyclotron as a Medical Instrument

The Cyclotron as a Medical Instrument The Cyclotron as a Medical Instrument 1 Fred Jenner Hodges , M.D. Ann Arbor, Michigan Excerpt Roentgenologists everywhere are proud of the accomplishments achieved by the pioneer in their specialty whose productive life was spent in your midst and whose name is to them indelibly associated with Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is not given to every community to have absorbed by daily impact the personality and intellect of a great man throughout four decades and more of his mature years. Over and above his contributions to clinical and scientific medicine, and to radiology in particular, A ugustus Warren Crane so endeared himself in the hearts of his colleagues and fellow citizens that memories of his life will long survive as a model of highminded purpose and unwavering devotion to public service. It is a splendid thing which your Academy of Medicine has done, to designate one meeting each year as a memorial to him. As your speaker, on this, the fifth anniversary of his passing, I have succeeded in part in overcoming a feeling of incompetence for that role by selecting a subject which certainly would have intrigued Dr. Crane and by arranging its presentation as though he were to be a member of the audience. He uiould not have objected, I am sure, if I had recalled his own interest in the medical possibilities which he sensed in the discovery of x-rays by a German physicist in December 1895. To him the contribution of another physicist thirty-five years later, in this instance younger by twenty years and working in Berkeley, California, would have stirred old memories and in the light of rich and varied experiences Dr. Crane would have been quick to appreciate the parallelism between these two events. Let me tell you, then, the story of the cyclotron and point out some of the achievements and potential applications of this instrument in the field of medicine. A Certain Amount of background is necessary to appreciate the circumstances surrounding the development of the cyclotron. During the decade beginning with 1920 physicists interested in the phenomena of radiation began to uncover facts regarding the structure of atoms which could not be adequately explained according to theories then widely accepted. It had long been known, of course, that certain elements of the greatest atomic weight possessed the strange power of spontaneous disintegration or radioactivity, but since no one had ever observed similar behavior in the case of the rank and file of elements, it had been assumed that the vast majority represented heavy nuclei or indivisible units of mass surrounded by very much lighter and very active electrons. For years physicists had busied themselves by delving into the mysteries of electron behavior and had harnessed these willing particles to practical public service in a great variety of ways, always assuming that no force which man might exert could hope to violate the sanctity of the central nucleus of an atom. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Radiology Radiological Society of North America, Inc.

The Cyclotron as a Medical Instrument

Hodges, Fred Jenner
Radiology , Volume 39 (4): 440 – Oct 1, 1942
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Publisher
Radiological Society of North America, Inc.
Copyright
Copyright © 1942 by Radiological Society of North America
ISSN
1527-1315
eISSN
0033-8419
DOI
10.1148/39.4.440
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The Cyclotron as a Medical Instrument 1 Fred Jenner Hodges , M.D. Ann Arbor, Michigan Excerpt Roentgenologists everywhere are proud of the accomplishments achieved by the pioneer in their specialty whose productive life was spent in your midst and whose name is to them indelibly associated with Kalamazoo, Michigan. It is not given to every community to have absorbed by daily impact the personality and intellect of a great man throughout four decades and more of his mature years. Over and above his contributions to clinical and scientific medicine, and to radiology in particular, A ugustus Warren Crane so endeared himself in the hearts of his colleagues and fellow citizens that memories of his life will long survive as a model of highminded purpose and unwavering devotion to public service. It is a splendid thing which your Academy of Medicine has done, to designate one meeting each year as a memorial to him. As your speaker, on this, the fifth anniversary of his passing, I have succeeded in part in overcoming a feeling of incompetence for that role by selecting a subject which certainly would have intrigued Dr. Crane and by arranging its presentation as though he were to be a member of the audience. He uiould not have objected, I am sure, if I had recalled his own interest in the medical possibilities which he sensed in the discovery of x-rays by a German physicist in December 1895. To him the contribution of another physicist thirty-five years later, in this instance younger by twenty years and working in Berkeley, California, would have stirred old memories and in the light of rich and varied experiences Dr. Crane would have been quick to appreciate the parallelism between these two events. Let me tell you, then, the story of the cyclotron and point out some of the achievements and potential applications of this instrument in the field of medicine. A Certain Amount of background is necessary to appreciate the circumstances surrounding the development of the cyclotron. During the decade beginning with 1920 physicists interested in the phenomena of radiation began to uncover facts regarding the structure of atoms which could not be adequately explained according to theories then widely accepted. It had long been known, of course, that certain elements of the greatest atomic weight possessed the strange power of spontaneous disintegration or radioactivity, but since no one had ever observed similar behavior in the case of the rank and file of elements, it had been assumed that the vast majority represented heavy nuclei or indivisible units of mass surrounded by very much lighter and very active electrons. For years physicists had busied themselves by delving into the mysteries of electron behavior and had harnessed these willing particles to practical public service in a great variety of ways, always assuming that no force which man might exert could hope to violate the sanctity of the central nucleus of an atom.

Journal

Radiology – Radiological Society of North America, Inc.

Published: Oct 1, 1942

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