War Enlarges and Enriches Medical Radiology, 1912–18

Shortly before World War I, laboratory science began to produce results relevant to medical radiology. Physicists elucidated not only the nature of X-rays but also the mechanisms of their interaction with matter. In biology, laboratory experimentation led to a theory that explained the effects of radiation on living organisms in terms that physicists would find familiar. Industrial research made available a powerful new technology: the high-vacuum, hot-cathode X-ray tube. The Great War hindered laboratory research and international cooperation but strengthened the medical radiological community in other ways. War-time requirements enlarged the number of clinical practitioners, increased production of both X-ray tubes and radium, attracted the attention of national standards laboratories, and led to the standardization of X-ray procedures, including for protection of X-ray practitioners and their patients. The War also pushed and pulled some physicists into medical radiology and some physicians to improve their understanding of physics, especially in the German-language academic world. Those career shifts would prove important to radiation measurements (dosimetry) and radiation protection after the war. Physicians were using X-rays and radium in the clinic before World War I, but only after 1914 did laboratory research begin to contribute to medical applications.