Lauriston Taylor, 102, Set X-Ray Dosage Standards

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Lauriston Taylor, who died November 26 at age 102, was a scientist who was responsible for setting the acceptable dosage standards for X-rays and other forms of radiation in doctor’s offices and workplaces such as nuclear plants.


As the longtime head of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement, Taylor was an important source of information for the American public about the dangers posed by radiation from nuclear war and testing. He once testified before Congress that “there would be no recovery” genetically for the American public if 50 or more cities were hit in a nuclear war. On the other hand, Taylor felt that the danger from radioactive fallout due to nuclear testing – a hot issue in the 1950s, when atmospheric tests were being done – had been overstated.


Taylor was born in Brooklyn, the son of a metallurgist who had wide-ranging scientific interests and who became involved with manufacturing parts for X-ray machines. The family moved to Maplewood, N.J., where young Lauriston began visiting the laboratory of Thomas Edison in nearby South Orange. When Taylor showed interest in vacuum tubes, Edison gave him a cold cathode X-ray tube. Taylor’s father forbade him to experiment with it, having heard that X-rays could be dangerous.


Taylor showed keen interest in the emerging technologies of the day, building a set of portable telephones when he was 11. He was fascinated by plumbing, and often walked three miles to school to save a nickel in carfare to purchase tools. Even as an adult, Taylor was a licensed plumber, electrician, and carpenter, and liked to fix old scientific instruments in his spare time.


Taylor was educated at Stevens Institute of Technology and at Cornell, where he became an expert in X-ray spectroscopy, although he left shortly before fulfilling the requirements for his Ph.D. After studying the effects of medical X-rays at Memorial Center in New York, Taylor became convinced that there was a vital need for radiological physicists to establish dosage and protection standards. Doctors, nurses, and patients were at risk of burns or worse at a time when an understanding of the risks of radiation was just beginning to emerge.


In 1927, Taylor took a position in Washington at the National Bureau of Standards, where he soon applied him self to the problems of measuring radiation accurately.


During the 1930s, Taylor and teams of scientists he headed established safe dosage levels for X-rays and developed protection standards that were in place when the Manhattan Project and Atomic Energy Project were initiated, in the 1940s. Taylor’s work helped establish the value of R, for Roentgen, a basic unit of radiation measurement that was accepted as an international standard in 1937.


During World War II, Taylor put his tinkering skills to good use in developing a new kind of delayed fuse that was used by the British in air defense. In 1943, Taylor was put in charge of organizing and recruiting scientists from around the country to help the Army Air Force, and he served as scientific advisor to General Hoyt Vandenberg. After the war, Taylor received the Medal of Freedom and the Bronze Star.


Returning to the Bureau of Standards, Taylor continued to work on radiation risks, and in 1948 organized the Atomic Energy Commission’s biophysics branch. Taylor also initiated a long-term study of fallout, especially isotopes of Strontium 90.


After retiring from the Bureau of Standards in 1965, Taylor continued to publish scientific papers and books and for six years headed the emergency planning committee for the National Academy of Sciences.


Always an enthusiastic outdoors man, he continued to hike. Once, on a winter’s ramble on the Appalachian Train with his sons, they were snowed in for a week. He also indulged in a wide-ranging collection of bowties, including one made of leopard skin.


Despite a perception that government standards on radiation may have been too weak, Taylor strongly defended them. In 1994, he told the Boston Globe, “Even to today, there’s no accepted evidence of specific injury to radiation workers at the limits we set in 1934.”


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