Following the discovery of x-rays in 1895, doctors and
physicists shared a common object of interest, and over the next
decades, individuals from both worlds stressed the need for
cooperation between physics and medicine in order for radiology
to progress. But these calls for cooperation often also
acknowledged the need for compromise, recognizing the very
different values and goals of the two communities. In this talk,
I will examine early debates over what constituted an
appropriate measurement of a dose of x-rays for therapeutic
purposes as a way of illuminating the divergent values of these
two cultures. The ideal of medicine as an art, the
unquantifiable skill of the physician, and a 'good enough'
pragmatism clashed with physicists' emphasis on precision and
objectivity. Tracing calls for a unit of radiation in both
Britain and the United States, I will show that the voices of
the x-ray physicists increased in authority over this time.
Despite resistance from practicing physicians, physicists were
succes