A New Way of Seeing.

You cannot fix what you cannot see. That principle explains in large part why medical research showed such dramatic results in the 1950s. On the one hand the very powerful electron microscope was available in some labs for the first time. On the other, X-ray technology was refined so that it could be commonly used for diagnosis. The first X-ray machine that could take a picture of an entire human body without overly exposing it to radiation was announced in 1951.

Medical Radiation.

Radiation therapy extended beyond the X-ray lab. A happy side effect of the nuclear research being conducted in the cause of national defense was that scientists began to understand how radiation works. They learned that controlled low-level radiation could be used for medical purposes.

Atomic Highlighter.

In 1950 physicians developed a technique using radiation and X rays together. Doctors...