8001< REVIEW

frompage20

uses, actions and side effects of the
drugs used to treat the condition.

This reviewer read through the
book three times and gained a little
more on each occasion. He enjoyed the
experience and congratulates all the
authors for an important contribution
to the understanding and diagnosis of
a most important condition.
Reviewer:
Prof Hillel Goodman,
Groote Schuur Hospital

Allan Cormack
clinical use of isotopes. He particularly
acknowledged the contributions of Pro-
fessor RW James of the UCT Physics
Department, and Dr Muir Grieve, a
Groote Schuur Hospital Radiothera-
pist, in encouraging him to make his
discovery.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize
for Physiology and Medicine together
with Sir Godfrey Hounsfield in 1979.
He is only one of three South Africans
to have won a scientific Nobel Prize
(with Max Theiler and Aaron Klug).

He later worked at Cambridge,
Harvard and subsequently Tufts Uni-
versity, where he became Chairman of
the Department of Physics.

The first CT scanner was placed
into clinical service in London in 1971,
and his insight has since gone on to
revolutionise our profession.

He died on 9 May this year at his
home in Winchester, Massachusetts at
the age of 74.

Acknowledgements
UCT Monday Paper, May 18-25, 1998, Vol. 17: No
13; Obituary, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Robin
Cherry, Sunday Times

Allan Cormack shares the distinction
of having founded the mathematical
principles of the image reconstruction
techniques used in Computerised
Tomography and Magnetic Resonance,
together with Sir Godfrey Hounsfield.
He also had close ties to the University
of Cape Town Physics and Radiology
Departments, where he made his
important mathematical deductions in
1957.

Born in Johannesburg, he matricu-
lated at Rondebosch Boys High, and
received his MSc in Physics at UCT in
1945.

His original work on resolving the
problems of axial imaging was based
on a phantom made of an aluminium
cylinder surrounded by a wooden cyl-
inder, together with the use of radio-
isotopes to confirm his mathematical
suspicions. He published these findings
in 1963 and 1964, establishing the core
logic of axial tomography, which
Hounsfield took to commercial com-
pletion. At the time of his momentous
discovery he was working in the Ra-
diology Department supervising the

Title:

Clinics in
Diagnostic

Imaging
Author:

Wilfred Peh
Publisher:

Miller Freeman
Price:

USO 15

Pages:
255

ISBN 981 04 01337

This book consists of 30 case
presentations with radiological images
and a discussion with each case. The
cases cover all important areas of
imaging from head and neck to
gynaecology. The images are of good
quality. The discussions are excellent
with current references. This book will
be very useful for registrars preparing
for the final fellowship examination.

The University of Pretoria is planning a Congress for
10-12 February 2000.

Topic: "Chest Radiology- Adult and Paediatric" Congress Chairman: Prof SF Prinsloo
Venue: CSIR, Pretoria Tel: (012) 354-2406
Please make a note of this in your diary if you are Fax: (012) 329-6763
interested Department of Radiology,Faculty of
Further details will he forthcoming Medicine, University of Pretoria,
Congress Co-ordinator: Dr LL Sirkin PO Box 667,Pretoria,OOOl

Advance
notification of
Chest Radiology
Congress

22 SA JOURNAL OF RADIOLOGY· February 1998