The first edition of Atomic Medicine was published in 1949, and concerned itself with the medical consequences of excessive ionizing radiation and the application of radioactive isotopes in diagnosis and therapy. Since then these two fields have diverged, the latter being called (by mutual consent of its practitioners), nuclear medicine. Unfortunately, the senior editor hasn't taken the hint, with the result that the latest edition of this book is a curious mixture once again of the effects of injurious and tracer doses of radioactivity in man.
With the exception of an excellent and detailed section on radiation genetics, most of the chapters are too short to be called anything but surveys, although each is written authoritatively. There is no organized material dealing with radioactive pharmaceuticals, nothing on the new concepts of radiation dosimetry, and nothing on radiation chemistry.
The chapter on radiation biology is reprinted almost word for word from