Radiotherapy

“Indeed, the mode of introduction of radiotherapy into medicine was diametrically opposed to the paradigm offered by ‘experimental’ medicine. Clinical application preceded rather than followed theoretical understanding and laboratory experimentation; the basic sciences found themselves in the position of having to explain already-existing clinical observations. This is the reverse of many significant innovations of the early twentieth century – for example, the discovery of insulin. Yet despite its ‘unscientific’ foundation, radiotherapy found a permanent place in medicine. What accounts for the emergence of radiotherapy against the tide of ‘rational’ therapeutics? . . . Radiotherapy made its entry into medicine through the portal of empiricism, and its use was stimulated by its associations with scientific discovery, its affirmation of the clinicians’ role in the assessment of new therapies, and its restoration of the physician’s threatened role as healer. Most important, it showed that new knowledge in medicine could come as well from the clinic as from the laboratory. It was only after a preparatory phase of enthusiastic empiricism that it entered the laboratory, where its physical principles and biological basis could be elucidated, permitting safe and rational use in patients” (Hayter, 677, 688).