A medical physicist avant-la letter: Edith Smaw Quimby (1891–1982)
Maria Rentetzi and Sandra Klos
“Radiation from x-ray tubes and radioactive substances is very useful in medicine and industry. But we must never for a moment lose sight of the fact that improperly used radiation can be a menace, not only to the user but to the completely innocent bystander” argued Edith Smaw Quimby during the Greater New York Council meeting in 1950. In a historical period that only very few women worked in physics, Quimby was then a member of the male dominated US Committee on Radiation Protection. Having worked closely with Gioacchino Failla, one of the most important radiation physicians of the 1920s, she studied the therapeutic uses of x-rays and radium before WWII. After the war, she focused on radioisotopes and their medical uses. By ascertaining the extent of radiation’s ability to penetrate an object (like human skin), Quimby enabled physicians to use the smallest possible doses of radiation on patients forging a safety culture in nuclear medicine. Maria Rentetzi and Sandra Klos will present Quimby’s mazing work in the forthcoming workshop on Women in the History of Quantum Physics, at the Deutches Museum in Munich, October 18-19.
You can find the program here.