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The Effect of Ionizing Radiations on the Broad Bean Root—Part XI

The Mount Vernon Hospital and The Radium Institute, Northwood, Middlesex

This excerpt was created in the absence of an abstract.

An investigation of the increase in X-ray sensitivity of the broad bean root produced by dissolved oxygen has already been reported. This paper describes a parallel experiment on the effect of oxygen on the -ray sensitivity. It is concluded that oxygen increases the effect of irradiation to a much smaller degree than it does that of X irradiation. When it is remembered that for every primary -ray ion there is approximately one ion in a -ray track, which are more akin to X-ray ionization than to primary -ray track, it seems probable that the biological action of the primary track is virtually unaffected by dissolved oxygen.

The efficiency ratio of the two radiations, X/ , increases from about 5 when the doses are given in normally aerated water, to 10 when given under anaerobic conditions.

A hypothesis is suggested which seems to fit the results of this and the earlier companion paper.

^* Now at the Dominion X-ray and Radium Laboratory, Christchurch, New Zealand.