Radiotherapy 1925-1959.

Abstract

This evening we celebrate 75 years of British Institute of Radiology activity. My story concerns only the middle 25 years of that period. In that quarter century radiotherapy evolved from a thing of minor value into an established speciality offering a valuable contribution to medicine. In regard to the situation before 1925 we need note only two points. Firstly, until that time although radiation was employed as a treatment medium it had by and large only palliative value, at times little more than placebo. But, secondly, by 1925 at the Paris Foundation Curie and the Stockholm Radiumhemmet, special pioneer centres had been established which were well on the way to showing that radium and X rays had vastly greater potential as curative agents than had been realized. In this country, partly stimulated by the pioneer work from abroad but partly rising spontaneously, things evolved rather differently. Looking back I think the salient character of our evolution was that it was from the beginning, multicentric. Much of the early credit should go to a Government-sponsored body known as the Radium Commission and to its secretary, the late Genai Stebbing. The Commission acquired radium and created in a number of centres spread over the country a new appointment known as Radium Officers. In the first instance these officers were primarily concerned with developing the use of radium as a therapeutic agent.