ReviewRadioactivity in Man. A symposium held at the Vander-bilt School of Medicine. Ed. ManeelyGeorge R., pp. xvi+491, 1960 (Springfield, Ill., U.S.A., Charles C. Thomas), £6 12s.

Abstract

This symposium, about half of which was devoted to the measurement of radioactivity in the human subject, followed four years after the first conference on “The Measurement of Body Radioactivity”, held in Leeds in 1956 and reported in Supplement No. 7 of this Journal. The advances in technique and the growth of interest in whole-body counting in the intervening years have been immense. In 1956 no more than six centres in the world, including two in the United States, had apparatus capable of measuring the natural level of body radioactivity. Some 40 scientists, actively engaged in measuring body radioactivity in 15 different centres contributed to this 1960 symposium and today it is known that the number of whole-body counting equipments in the world approaches 100. The symposium, however, covered a wider field than whole-body counting and included papers on the effects of internal γ-ray emitters and on a number of general aspects of radioactivity in the modern world.