In 1940, just one year after Ernest O. Lawrence won the Nobel Prize for his invention of the cyclotron, William Myers attended a lecture by Ernest’s brother John Lawrence on the potential uses of the cyclotron in medicine. The cyclotron was one of the earliest sub-atomic particle accelerators. When accelerated particles in the cyclotron struck ordinary nucleai radioisotopes were produced. Lawrence pointed out that, at times, these radioisotopes had potential uses for medicine. Lawrence’s lecture ignited Myers’s interest in what was to become his life-long research pursuit: using the cyclotron to develop radioactive isotopes for medical use.
Myers (August 7, 1908 – June 18, 1988) made many contributions to nuclear medicine and was instrumental in bringing the cyclotron to the Physics Department at Ohio State in 1941. In 1948, he introduced cobalt-60 as a substitute for radium in cancer treatment, in 1952, he and Benjamin H. Colmery introduced gold-198 as a replacement for radon-222 in permanent seed implantation for cancer. Myers was also instrumental in the development of radioisotopes for diagnostic and investigative medicine. He introduced more radioisotopes into nuclear medicine than any other individual – eleven in all.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, Myers was a son of a farmer and a factory worker. Myers’s parents divorced when he was very young, and as a result, he lived in an orphanage for a number of years. After remarrying, his father reunited the family and moved into a homestead in Alberta, Canada. As a boy, Myers helped build the family log cabin and support the family by hunting and fishing. Myers rode ten miles by horse to attend the local school. However, he left home and school as a teenager to support himself as a photographer and waiter. Myers eventually returned to his family, and to school. A decent student whose grades were not always stellar, he excelled in the sciences, particularly in chemistry. Myers graduated from Wauseaon High School and won a competitive tuition scholarship to The Ohio State University. The Myers Collection contains his master’s thesis, dissertation, and course work that document his years at The Ohio State University, where he supported himself as a barber and a teaching assistant in chemistry. By attending thirty-nine consecutive quarters, Myers earned his PhD in physical chemistry in 1939 and his MD in 1941.
The Myers Collection also contains the papers of his wife Florence Lenahan Myers. Myers and Lenahan met in a neuroanatomy class in 1938 and were married December 24, 1940 – the same year that Lenahan earned her MD. Lenahan was one of only three female medical doctors to graduate that year. His “favorite wife,” as Myers affectionately called her, was a physician in Columbus for thirty-five years. Lenahan was one of the few doctors who remained in private practice in the Columbus, Ohio area during World War II. She made house calls in a rural area and often accepted canned goods, and even live chickens, for payment. In 1944, she and Myers were the first doctors to use penicillin in Columbus, and in 1945, they co-authored the article, “A Case of Osteomyelitis Treated with Penicillin with Unusual Bacteriological Findings.”
A radiation secretary officer and radiation monitor, Myers served during Operation Crossroads, the joint Army and Navy nuclear weapons test series that took place in the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands and comprised the first post-World War II nuclear bombing tests. A highlight of the Myers Collection are the letters he wrote in 1946 to Lenahan describing his experience. The series consisted of two tests, Able and Baker, each using the same type of MK 3A fision bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. Able was the first test designed to study the effects of the atomic bomb on naval vessels, planes, and animals. Utilizing an airburst-type detonation, Able produced radiation contamination that quickly dissipated. Baker, on the other hand, employed a sub-surface burst and yielded very different results: an explosion that bathed the fleet in radioactive mist and debris and required close to a year of de-contamination efforts. All personnel were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but in his job as monitor, Myers had the greatest risk of harmful exposure. This experience cemented his interest in what he called “atoms for peace.”
Myers cultivated professional and personal relationships with Nobel Prize winners and other important figures in the fields of chemistry, physics and nuclear medicine at hospitals and research centers throughout the world. A member of the Society of Nuclear Medicine since its inaugural year, Myers remained active in the organization throughout his long career and served as the society’s historian for 13 years (1973-1986). During this time, he published many articles documenting the history of nuclear medicine in the society’s journal The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. He also regularly corresponded with various United States Government agencies, including the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
An active member of the faculty photography club and an avid photographer, Myers shot many of the 3,840 photographic prints, 4,508 negatives, and 18,400 slides in the collection. Myers’s photographic subjects include nuclear medicine pioneers, historical OSU Medical Center events, and nuclear medicine equipment. Myers was among the first researchers employing radiation in medical studies and counted among his friends many of the early innovators who are mentioned in a previous paragraph as recipients of his letters. Myers was particularly proud of the photograph he took of Madame Marie Curie’s daughter Irene Joliot-Curie, which he donated to the Institut du Radium at the University of Paris.
Myers pioneered safety standards for nuclear waste as well as the use of radioisotopes for medical use. As a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Myers researched and taught for more than forty years. He taught the university’s first radiation biology course (the first course in the world to be taught by a physician); held faculty positions in the departments of medicine, physiology, and radiology; and, earned emeritus professor status in 1979. Additionally, he served as visiting professor of biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley (1970s) and Cornell University (1980s). Myers also spent considerable time researching with larger cyclotrons at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Myers was a prolific author, publishing over 200 articles during his lifetime.
Throughout his career, Myers championed the cyclotron. With Myers as its backer, OSU acquired one of the first cyclotrons in the world and was one of the first universities to make short-lived radionucledes for medical use. However, the development of the nuclear reactor, which could produce larger quantities of radioisotopes than the cyclotron, began to put cyclotrons on the back burner. As Myers’s career progressed, he studied radionuclides with progressively shorter half-lives. Many of these shorter-lived radionuclides could not remain radioactive in transit from a large nuclear reactor and could be better produced in a cyclotron. Myers argued that every hospital should have its own cyclotron. Through continuing research with cyclotrons, Myers played a large role in their resurgence in the 1990s. For his continuing role as proponent of the cyclotron, Henry Wagner, present historian of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and co-author of Atoms for Life: a Personal History of Nuclear Medicine, called Myers the “godfather of the cyclotron.” This is a title he greatly deserves.
Two more biographies, one by A.J. Christoforidis and the other by Jack Rall, are available from The Ohio State University’s Department of Radiation, William G. Myers Medical Library website.
The William G. Myers, MD, PhD Papers (approximately 190 linear feet) consists of artifacts, awards, slides, negatives, photographs, audio and video recordings, as well as various papers related to association and departmental records, correspondence, publications, research, speeches, exhibits, and lectures. These items document his position as a pioneer in nuclear medicine, a civil defense organizer, a long-time Society of Nuclear Medicine executive committee member and historian.
The collection contains materials from all periods of Myers’s life (1908-1988), but particularly focuses on his long career as a teacher and nuclear medicine researcher at The Ohio State University (late 1940s through the early1980s). Similarly, it contains teaching and research materials from his appointments at the UC Berkeley/Lawrence Lab and Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
All of these materials were saved by Myers and kept in various offices that he occupied over the years. The collection contained many duplicate copies of documents. Two copies were retained for the archives. In most cases, additional copies were removed. Although there is much strength to the collection as a whole, Series V: Correspondence; Series VIII: Photographs; and Series XIV: Equipment, Laboratories, and Supplies are particularly valuable.
Related collections in the Medical Heritage Center holdings include:
Related collections outside of the Medical Heritage Center include:
This collection is arranged in eighteen series:
Series I: Artifacts and Oversize Materials (12 boxes) contains three-dimensional artifacts and items that were too large to fit in standard-size boxes. The items are arranged into seven categories:
Series II: Associations and Conferences (17 boxes) contains papers relating to organizations of which Myers was a member or with which he was associated. Items in the series include pamphlets, conference agendas and minutes, organizational publications, proposals, and plans. The conferences (both national and international) that he attended during his career constitute a subseries within this series. Additionally, there is some overlap between these categories. The series is arranged alphabetically by association name and within that by date.
Series III: Audio and Video Recordings (3 boxes) contains cassette and reel-to-reel recordings relating to the field of Nuclear Medicine. Of particular interest are the several recordings of Myers’s various lectures and the 1962 recording of an interview with Nuclear Medicine pioneer Georg Charles de Hevesy, who won the 1943 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Transcripts and recording notes, if available, are located with the corresponding audio recording and are noted in the container list portion of the finding aid.
Series IV: Awards/ Memorials (1 box) contains awards, certificates, recognitions, and honors given to Myers throughout his life. It also contains memorials and tributes to Myers at the time of his death in 1988. The series is arranged in chronological order by date of award or memorial.
Series V: Correspondence (15 boxes) contains letters to and from Myers beginning in 1933 and continuing until his death in 1988. Myers made copies of the letters he sent, thus providing a complete record of his correspondence. The series includes correspondence regarding his teaching, research, conference attendance, students and colleagues, reprint requests, civic and administrative activities, awards, accomplishments, association memberships, supply companies, publishing activities, and professional associations, travel, and friendships. The series is arranged in alphabetical order according to the last name of the person with whom Myers was corresponding, with further arrangement by date. Where four or more pieces of correspondence existed between Myers and another individual/organization, a separate, named folder was created. Otherwise, correspondence was placed in the “General” file at the beginning of each letter of the alphabet. Unnamed or illegible recipients/senders are filed at the back of the series under Unnamed Correspondence.
Series VI: Negatives (14 boxes) contains 35mm photographic and slide negatives that were taken by Myers during his lifetime. They depict a wide variety of topics. The negative strips are arranged according to topic in the following subseries:
Series VII: Slides (41 boxes) contains slides made by William G. Myers, primarily for teaching and lecture purposes. Slides of travel destinations, miscellaneous “focus” slides, and images of family, friends, and colleagues are also included within the series. When the collection was accessioned into the Medical Heritage Center, many of the slides were placed in slide cases and identified as “teaching slides.” The collection’s archivist maintained the original order of such cased slides and the slides were placed together into the Teaching subseries and labeled with the same title given to them by Myers. Contained within this category are a variety of images of charts, individuals, equipment, scans, images, etc. Loose and non-labeled slides within the collection were arranged alphabetically within subseries. These subseries are:
Series VIII: Photographs (33 boxes) is particularly strong in showcasing the history of nuclear medicine, including diagnostic and treatment equipment, field pioneers, and images made with groundbreaking technology. It is rich in images of Myers’s early life, awards ceremonies, conferences and events, exhibits, Operation Crossroads, OSU Medical Center history, pioneers in nuclear science, and equipment. The photographic collection is arranged into the following subseries:
Series IX: Interests, Personal and Professional (6 boxes) contains papers that reflect Myers’s ongoing interests and concerns. This series is arranged first by subseries, then by subject, and within subject by date.
Series X: Publications (9 boxes) contains copies and originals that reflect the full range of his research and writings in manuscript and published form. Manuscripts and reprints are filed alphabetically by titles. There are several subseries within this series:
Series XI: Research (11 boxes) contains data generated from research conducted with students and colleagues as well as reports and experiments; grants and patents; and intact research notes filed alphabetically. In addition, there are subseries devoted to tables and graphs; formulae and calculations; and grant proposals and progress reports completed at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Autopsies performed by Myers are included here. Also of note are Myers’s studies of Penicillium notatum for his doctoral thesis, trials of various elements as isotopes, and studies testing the biomedical effects of exposure to x-rays. The series is arranged first by subseries, then alphabetically by subject, and finally by date. ‘Originally Filed As’ documents are filed ahead of other documents. Subseries within this series are:
Series XII: Speeches and Exhibits (3 boxes) contains copies of speeches that Myers gave throughout his career. They are arranged alphabetically by title with untitled speeches filed at the end of the series. Panel discussions in which Myers participated are also included in this series. The subseries are:
Series XIII: Teaching (5 boxes) contains documents pertaining to Myers’s career as a teacher. Included are his lecture notes and slide presentations, mid-term and final examinations, quizzes, and graduate student oral presentations. Answer sheets to problem exercises given to students are included. An extensive collection of the master copies of handouts that he used for class are included as well. Some papers relating to his responsibilities of a member of the faculty are also included such as university publicity, teaching assignments and annual reports to the head of the Radiology Department. Files in this series are arranged first by subseries, then, by course number or course name, and finally, by date. There are several subseries:
Series XIV: Equipment, Laboratories, and Supplies (11 boxes) contains purchasing receipts, specs, and images of equipment and supplies found in commercially produced catalogues. All files in this series are arranged in alphabetical order by company or laboratory name and within that, by date. There are three subseries within this series:
Series XV: Myers Library and Conference Room Exhibit (19 boxes) contains many mounted photographs and other Myers-related materials that were used to create a presentation about Myers for the opening of the Myers Library and Conference Room (James Cancer Hospital) in 1999. The exhibit installed in the Myers Library and Conference Room in 2005 was added to this series in 2009. There is much overlap between this series and the Photographs series.
Series XVI: Notebooks (22 boxes) contains the papers found in an extensive set of notebooks kept by William G. Myers over the course of his career. The topics overlap with those found in other series within the Myers collection, for example, Series V: Correspondence; Series II: Associations and Conferences; Series XII: Speeches; Series IX: Research; Series X: Publications; and Series XIII: Teaching, especially Physiology 646 and 746. It should be noted that all the notebooks in this series have remained intact as Myers filed them.
Series XVII: Photocopy Collection of Asa Seeds Materials (1 box) contains materials created by Asa Seeds largely pertaining to work related to the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM). As SNM is the most appropriate repository for these materials, we photocopied the materials (in original order) and shipped the originals to SNM in July 2006. The MHC is retaining one copy of each for researchers. The topics overlap with those found in other series within the Myers collection, particularly Series II: Associations.
Series XVIII: Special Collection : Hal O. Anger Publications (1 box) contains publications about tomography and the scintillation camera as they developed over the time period 1959 – 1969. All articles were written by Hal O. Anger. This collection was filed together and remains filed together as a separate collection within the Myers collection. Files are arranged by date.
The collection is open to the public and is available for viewing in the Medical Heritage Center. Materials do not circulate and must be used in the supervised reading room. Some materials in the collection are restricted to protect patient privacy. They are designated “RESTRICTED” in the finding aid and on the file folder. Please see the Medical Heritage Center curator for assistance with restricted files. Other restrictions, including copyright, may exist and some materials may be too fragile to photocopy or digitize. The MHC charges for duplication services, which must be performed by staff.
[Identification of item], William G. Myers, MD, PhD Papers, SPEC.199801.MYERS, Medical Heritage Center, Health Sciences Library, The Ohio State University.