BIR celebrates the life and work of Sir Godfrey Hounsfield
Sir Godfrey Hounsfield, CBE, FRS (28 August 1919 – 12 August 2004) was an English electrical engineer who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Allan McLeod Cormack for his part in developing the diagnostic technique of X-ray computed tomography (CT).
Every year the BIR commemorate the life and work of this computed tomography (CT) pioneer with an event named after him ‘The Memorial Day of Sir Godfrey Hounsfield’ which is held during the BIR Annual Congress. The BIR awards a prize to the selected nominee for their work related to CT. Previous winners and last year's lecture can be accessed here.
In 2012 BIR published a book ‘Godfrey Hounsfield: Intuitive Genius of CT’ which describes the life and work of this amazing scientist.
BJR has a number of articles describing the work of Hounsfield.
Higson (1987) describes the development of CT and the Department of Health’s first interest in CT scanning in 1968 when Hounsfield while working at EMI introduced his idea of obtaining sectional pictures of the body by the use of narrow beam of X rays.
Husband, and Dombrowe (2005) pay tribute to Hounsfield for the extraordinary impact X-ray CT had on the diagnosis, treatment and management of disease.
Beckmann (2006) describes some of the history of the early days of CT scanning in this paper which discusses the Hounsfield project proposal, lathe bed model, prototype, the first clinical patient including the CT1010 scanner.