1956

First use of linear accelerator in radiotherapy: In January, infant Gordon Issacs, diagnosed with retinoblastoma (a malignant eye tumor) received first of 38 treatments at Stanford University Hospital utilizing the medical linear accelerator developed by radiotherapist Henry Kaplan and physicist Edward Ginzton. It was the first treatment in the Western hemisphere utilizing a radiotherapy machine that directed six million volts at tumors with pinpoint accuracy. (N.B. The Medical Research Council had installed Britain’s first linear accelerator in Hammersmith Hospital a year and a half earlier.) On June 18, Kaplan wrote the infant’s mother that her son’s retinal lesion appeared to have entirely calcified, with no evidence of spread (C. Jacobs, 118-121).