the British Society for the History of Radiology
THE JOHN BLAIR TRUST
John Blair was a surgeon who worked at Perth Royal Infirmary and as a medical historian
worked at St Andrews and Dundee Universities. In 1994, he was the President for the
Scottish Society for the History of Medicine and the British Society for the History
of Medicine. He had a commitment and interest in promoting the study and research
into the history of medicine.
The Congress for the International Society for the History of Medicine was held in
Glasgow in 1994. The success of the Congress made it possible to establish a Trust
Fund in 1995 to provide financial assistance to undergraduates with their history
of medicine research topics. Today the Trust can award grants of up to £150 per student.
If you are interested in presenting a paper/poster at the next BSHM Congress in Edinburgh,
September 2017, or entering for a prize given by the History of Medicine Society
at the Royal Society of Medicine or to the Hunterian Society apply to us for the
application form.
Sue Weir
Chairman to the John Blair Trust
BOOK REVIEW
An Interventional Radiology Odyssey: The Story of my Life and Work
by Josef Rosch
Springer 2016 pp103
Reviewed by Dr Arpan K Banerjee Chair Brit Soc Hist Radiology
Autobiographies written by radiologists are few and far between. Few radiologists
have chronicled their own life stories. It is therefore a great pleasure to find
this new radiology autobiography written by a true giant of interventional radiology.
Josef Rosch who was born in 1925 in Czechoslovakia has chronicled his amazing life
story in this slim volume. It is a delight to read and is likely to inspire the
next generation of interventional radiologists. Rosch was inspired to do radiology
by his inspirational radiology teaching during medical student days having initially
intended to be a physician.
Between 1954 and 1967 he carried out research on angiography in Prague. In 1967
he moved to Oregon on a research fellowship to work with Charles Dotter, the angiography
pioneer. The pioneering work on gastrointestinal bleed embolization, thrombolysis,
pharmacoangiograhy and TIPS( transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt) and
expandable metallic stents carried out there is described. Rosch chronicles his
friendship with Judkins, Dotter and Bill Cook (owner and President of Cook Medical)
amongst many other friendships.
He mentored generations of future leaders in their fields. The founding of the
Dotter Interventional Institute in 1990 is described along with his subsequent new
fellows and research which continued well into his retirement years.
Rosch has had a brilliant career in this new field and can lay claim to be one of
the true pioneers of this subject. His phenomenal industry , prolific research output
and work ethic come through in this slim volume. All who read it will be inspired
by his remarkable story and his outstanding contribution to the new field of medicine.
REPORTS
History Sessions, International Congress of Radiology, Buenos Aires, Argentina
24 September 2016
The Sheraton Hotel and Conference Centre, Buenos Aires Argentina was the venue for
the 29th International Congress of Radiology (21-24 Sept 2016) organised by the International
Society of Radiology a society founded in 1925 for the promotion of radiology knowledge
and teaching worldwide. Over one hundred invited speakers from 24 countries delivered
invited talks in addition to proffered papers and posters and an exhibition which
was attended by several thousand delegates.
Buenos Aires , often considered the ‘Paris’ of Latin America was a wonderful venue
for an international conference. The city with its magnificent boulevards (avenue
Julio 9 is one of the widest boulevards in the world), beautiful parks, statues,
a mixture of architecture old including the Casa Rosada (with European influences)
and new skyscrapers, museums, bookshops galore , shopping galleries and a famous
opera house ‘The Teatro Colon’ as well as traditional tango houses and a recently
developed dockland area provide the visitor with much to explore.
A wide range of radiology topics were covered during the conference including a
session on the history of radiology organised with the International Society for
the History of Radiology (ISHRAD).
Read Arpan Banerjee’s report here
BSHM 2017 REGISTRATION
Registration for the BSHM Edinburgh Congress, 13 -16 September is now open at:
http://bshm.org.uk/congress/congress-registration/
Book now to take advantage of the early bird rates. BSHM members and members of BSHM
affiliated societies enjoy a further discount - if they book now the 3 day delegate
rate for the Conference is only £180.
Keynote speakers will include Philippa Langley , who led the successful search for
the remains of Richard III, and the Guthrie lecture will be delivered by Professor
David Watters from Melbourne. The Congress is being held in association with the Society
for the Social History of Medicine whose sponsored keynote speaker is Professor Malcolm
Nicolson.
Please note that abstract submission is also open via http://bshm.org.uk/congress/congress-registration/ and
will close on 31 May.
The congress has approval for up to 20 hours of CPD.
Dr Martyn Thomas
Secretary BSHM
THE ORAL HISTORY SOCIETY
BSHR has recently joined the Oral History Society as a group member. It gives us
access to their Journal and services. Take a look at their website for details.
If you wish to look at the Journal you will need our group username and password.
Members can obtain these from the Secretary. Email info.bshr@gmail.com
BOOK REVIEW
Louis Harold Gray: a founding father of radiobiology by S Wynchank.
Springer 2017 pages 137
Reviewed by Dr Arpan K Banerjee Past Chairman British Society for the History of
Radiology.
This slim volume is a publication from the Springer Biography series. The last contribution
in the series I read was the superb autobiography of Rosch the interventional radiology
pioneer.
This biography is of Louis Harold Gray the British physicist and a giant in the
field of radiobiology which is the basis of modern radiotherapy. Hal Gray as he
was known was born in London in 1905 an only child educated at Christ’s Hospital
and subsequently the physics department at Cambridge University where he was taught
by Rutherford. He was a brilliant student and continued to do a PHD at the Cavendish
labs under the supervision of Chadwick discoverer of the neutron and a Nobel Laureate.
Gray was interested in nuclear physics and was interested in how ionising radiation
could treat tumours. He moved to Mount Vernon Hospital to pursue his interests as
hospital physicist. He used a neutron generator to measure ionising effects on tissues.
After the War he moved to the MRC Radiotherapy research unit at the Hammersmith Hospital
where his team did much pioneering work.
In 1949 he became President of the British Institute of Radiology. Sadly, after differences
with his boss at he MRC unit he had to leave the Hammersmith Hospital in 1953 and
returned to Mount Vernon where he built a superb world famous radiobiology unit.
He did much travelling in the late 1950’s when he was at the height of his fame.
Gray was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. Gray’s stroke is described and he sadly
passed away in 1965 aged only 59. In 1975 he was honoured by having the absorbed
dose of radiation named after him.
This well researched biography is a delight to read and tells the story of a remarkable
scientist whose contributions laid the foundation stones for future radiotherapy.
Report of the British Society for the History of Radiology annual lecture on ‘Albert
Einstein’
By
Dr Arpan K Banerjee Past Chair Brit Soc History of Radiology
The name Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is universally associated with the term scientific
genius and as a scientist he needs little in the way of an introduction.
Born in 1879 in Germany, he did not show early signs of his genius and in 1900 completed
his teaching diploma in maths and physics at the Zurich Polytechnic. He struggled
to get a job and ended up working in a patent office. In 1905 he completed his PhD
thesis from Zurich University entitled ‘A New Determination of Molecular dimensions’.
That was his annus mirabilis, publishing four important papers each itself worthy
of a Nobel Prize aged only26 years. They were on the subject of Brownian motion,
photoelectric effect (important for radiology), relativity and mass energy equivalence
known more popularly as E=MC2. He instantly became famous, became a lecturer in
Berne , then a Professor in Prague, returning to Zurich in 1912 as Professor of Theoretical
Physics. Einstein emigrated to USA and worked in Princeton. He was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Physics in 1921. Einstein was feted the world over and became friends with
people as diverse as Charles Chaplin the film-maker and the Indian writer and Nobel
laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
This year’s British Society for the History of Radiology’s annual lecture on 20 Feb
2017 was a theatrical presentation entitled ‘Albert Einstein – Relativively speaking’
(pardon the pun!). It was presented by John Hinton and Jo Eagle of the Tangram Theatre
Company (a company conceived by graduates of the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris, a
school of physical theatre whose alumni include Stephen Berkoff and Yasmin Reza
the playright).
John Hinton delivered the presentation in the guise of Einstein and the evening
included reminiscences of Einstein’s childhood, his mother’s love of music, his
first wife and her scientific contributions, his equivalence theory set to rap, his
Princeton lecture, explanation of some of his ideas with audience participation.
His description of Arthur Eddington, the British astronomer helping prove his theory
of relativity during the solar eclipse of 1919, his relationship with his second
wife Elsa and more seriously his great upset that his discoveries had led to the
atom bomb – Einstein was a pacifist.
The evening was a fascinating, unique presentation of Einstein the man interspersed
with music and song and had the audience captivated in the Governor’s Hall at St
Thomas’s Hospital, London on the 20th of February.
All who attended were enthralled and enlightened by the unique performance re-telling
the story of Einstein, a man universally acknowledged as the brightest scientific
star in the human intellectual firmament.
First published in Rad Magazine April 12 2017 p11
John Hinton as Einstein and Jo Eagle as Elsa
Image courtesy of Hannah Houston