The Tolerance Dose and the Prevention of Injuries caused by Ionizing Radiations

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I beg to offer you, Mr. President, my warmest thanks for your kind speech of welcome. I feel that it is a great honour to have been invited to give this lecture, and I appreciate the distinction thus afforded to the country and the Institute to which I belong. It was necessary when choosing the subject for this lecture to find a field which was not only topical but also afforded an opportunity to present new aspects which might be of interest. The high level of development which medical radio-physics has reached in your country made it extremely difficult to find a subject which had not already been treated by British scientists with greater knowledge than I can claim to possess. I find, however, that in some respects, one practical problem of great importance both for physicists and clinicians has been solved differently in our two countries. The organisation of the supervision of radiological work differs considerably in England and Sweden. The principles adopted by our Institute of Radio-Physics for the assessment of the tolerance dose and the necessary protective measures differ in many respects from those in use in England. Without wishing to assert that we in Sweden have progressed further in the matter of the prevention of radiation injuries than in England, I felt nevertheless that a lecture on this subject might be of interest.