10 Applied Biophysics 



in this respect is to be useful, while on the part of the medical 

 radiologist we ask for a more enHghtened understanding of the 

 importance of the physicist, not only in solving the technical 

 day-to-day problems, but also as a spearhead of the attack on 

 the fundamental biophysical problems of the structure of living 

 material and its interaction with radiation. As new fields of 

 medical physics develop, doubtless similar problems of coopera- 

 tion will arise, but the principles of cooperative study and 

 education are universal. 



Developing Influence of Physics in Biology and Medicine 



It is certain that the materials of the living organism are 

 much more complex than any hitherto subjected to physical 

 inquiry, but that advances in knowledge of the structure of 

 these living materials, both normal and pathological, might 

 bring about revolutionary changes in medicine no one could 

 deny. The use of modern physical weapons like the X-ray 

 spectrograph, the electron microscope with its possibilities of 

 electron diffraction, or the radioactive tracers, offers nothing 

 less. A great deal of the knowledge may not at first be new, 

 but both physics and biology seem to have reached a stage 

 where the techniques and perhaps the "ideology" of physics 

 are becoming vital to biological progress. The cyclotron pro- 

 ducing its wealth of artificial radioactive products, and the 

 electron microscope lowering the limits of visible size over 

 a critical region covering the viruses and colloidal particles, 

 make possible an attack on the wealth of organization lying 

 between the small molecule and the visible speck of living 

 matter. These and other weapons hold out promise of rich 

 rewards in a field in which hitherto physics has hardly dared 

 to venture. \\ hether there will develop a reasonably well- 

 defined science of biophysics analogous to biochemistry it is 

 difficult to foretell. Physics is such a vigorous parent that 

 its lusty children tend to early maturity and independence. 



It will not be easy to combine the distinctive features of 

 physics and biology. The conceptions of physics tend towards 



