Cobalt blues
Subtitle: the story of Leonard Grimmett, the man behind the first Cobalt-60 unit in the United States
By: Peter R. Almond
Publisher: Springer
Published: 2012
Place of publication: New York, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 153
ISBN-13: 9781461449232; 9781461449349
Subjects: Physicists; Biography; Radiotherapy; History; Chemistry; Cobalt
Description: <p>For the latter half of the 20th century, cobalt-60 units were the mainstay of radiation treatments for cancer. Cobalt Blues describes the development of the first cobalt-60 unit in the United States and the man behind it, Leonard Grimmett. Conceptually conceived before World War II, it only became possible because of the development of nuclear reactors during the war.</p><p>Although Grimmett conceived of and published his ideas first, the Canadians built the first units because of the capability of their reactor to produce more suitable cobalt-60 sources. This book tells the story of how Grimmett and others came together at the time that the U S Atomic Energy Agency was pushing the use of radioactivity in medicine. Due to his sudden death, very little information about Grimmett was known until recently, when various documents have come to light, allowing the full story to be told.</p>
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 139-149) and index.
Table of contents: title: M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1941-1949 --; title: The Journey, January 29 to February 7, 1949 --; title: Early Life and Education, London, 1903-1929 --; title: Medical Physicist Part I, London, 1929-1944 --; title: The Unknown Years and UNESCO, Paris, 1944-1948 --; title: Replacing Radium, 1937-1949 --; title: The Arrival, Houston, February 1949 --; title: The Cobalt Unit, 1949-1954 --; title: Medical Physicist Part II, Houston, 1949-1951 --; title: Cobalt-60 and the Notebook --; title: Cobalt-60 in Perspective.