Originally published in the British Journal of Badiology 29, 344 (1956). 



88. RADIOACTIVE TRACERS IN RADIOBIOLOGICAL 

 STLDIES. THE THIRTY-SIXTH SILVANUS THOMPSON 



MEMORIAL LECTURE 



G. C. Hevesy 



Institute! fiir Organisk Kemi och Biokemi, Stockholms, Hcgskola, Sweden 



It is with a sense of great privilege that I am delivering this lecture to 

 commemorate the great and first president of the Roentgen Society. 

 Radiology is deeply indebted to Silvanus Thompson for the foresight, 

 enthusiasm and energy with which he so successfully served its cause. 

 Not alone the application of X-rays but many other branches of science 

 and art benefited by the great vigour and breadth of his mind. Silvanus 

 Thompson was my first teacher in Electricity, his book Elementary 

 Lessons on Electricity and Magnetism my first text-book in that field. 

 I am, therefore, all the more grateful to this Institute for the high honour 

 it has done me in affording me the opportunity of paying a tribute to 

 the man for wdiose personality and writings I have had a particular 

 adn iration since my early youth. 



Glancing at earlier Silvanus Thompson lectures, great names and 

 great presentations emerge. I have to restrict myself to the discussion 

 of some applications of radioactive tracers in the study of pathochemical 

 effects produced by ionizing radiation, effects which are early steps in 

 those changes which the radiotherapist wishes to achieve. 



Damage and destruction of cells are possibly the most important 

 radiobiological effects. To the understanding of an important type of 

 cell death in which mitotic processes are involved the application of 

 radioactive tracers has materially contributed. 



INTERFERENCE WITH THE FORMATION OF DESOXYRIBONLCLEIC 



ACID 



Quite shortly after the discovery of artificial radioactivity by Frederic 

 and Irene Joliot-Curie, radioactive phosphorus was applied first in 

 the study of the renewal of the mineral constituents of the skeleton, 

 then in that of the rate of the renewal of phospholipids and the acid- 

 soluble phosphorus compounds present in the animal organism. A few 

 years later we extended these studies to the investigation of the rate at 



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