William Freer Bale

William Freer Bale, son of R. O. Bale was awarded a scholarship to Cornell University from Odessa, Schuyler County, New York after successfully passing an examination.[1] Bale graduated from Cornell in 1932. In 1936 he completed his Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Rochester.[2]

The Atomic Energy Project at the University of Rochester was a graduate teaching program. Stafford L. Warren directed the Department of Radiology and the project had three divisions. Bale headed the Radiology and Biophysics division that worked largely on radioactive materials—for example, radium, radon, plutonium, and polonium. James Newell Stannard was responsible for 2 sections, the Radiation Toxicology section and the Radioautography section. Harold Hodge headed the Pharmacology and Toxicology division that focused on Uranium including inhalation studies. Joe W. Howland, M.D. headed the Medical Services division. Herbert Mermagen worked in the Medical Physics section as a radiological physicist, known today as a health physicist.[3][4][5]

Bale performed research in X-ray diffraction of tooth and bone tissue. At Rochester responsible for development of dipping type counter tube for the determination of radioactivity in solutions. Responsible for the coordination of radioactive tracer research at Rochester and during World War II worked with the Manhattan Project performing uranium toxicology studies.

At Rochester, Bale worked with George Hoyt Whipple.[6] The discoveries of artificial radioactivity by Joliot-Curie and Fermi and the invention of the cyclotron by Ernest O. Lawrence with its capability of producing useful amounts of radioactive iron (⁵⁹Fe) permitted Whipple, Paul F. Hahn, and Bale in 1937 to begin an examination of the nature of iron absorption and utilization.[7]

In 1951 upon retirement from the University of Rochester, Bale became a Consultant in the Division of Biology and Medicine, Biophysics Branch, for the Atomic Energy Commission.

As early as the 1920s, German scientists were proposing that radon was the cause of the great excess of lung cancers (Ludewig et al. 1924).[8] Data from this research was collected during autopsies. From the 1820s to 1920s over 400 mine workers from a particular region were found to have died of `lung cancer` separate from other causes of death. Even with collective evidence, it was not until the 1950s, thanks in part to W.F. Bale, that it was accepted by researchers that radon was the major cause of radiation damage to lung tissue in mine workers.[9] Also discovered, was that tin, iron and uranium miners experience much higher levels of radon than coal miners.[10]

Dr. Bale was the contact person at the University of Rochester for correspondence between Rochester and the Los Alamos Laboratory pertaining to the human plutonium study.[11] Bale was involved in the experiments that injected plutonium into human research subjects or ‘patients’. The human subjects were informed that these experiments were important to the war effort. The patients were told that the radioactive material had the potential to be hazardous in large doses but that the patients would receive small amounts that were not believed to be of any significant risk. Again, the emphasis was placed on the importance to the war effort. Bale would only select people that volunteer for the research and were eager to cooperate. Among those involved included: Albert Frenkel, Dorraine Leake, Helen Van Alstine, and Nat Cedars.

Reviewer, Cancer Research Journal

• Sigma Xi member
• Speaker, 112th Annual Meeting in St. Louis, American Association for the Advancement of Science, March 1946
• Speaker, 1947 Meeting, National Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Blood Protein Studies with Labeled Elements.
• Speaker, Conference on the Use of Radioactive Isotopes as Tracers and Therapeutic Agents, Vanderbilt University[12][13]

• Apparatus for the Rapid Determination of β‐Ray Activity in Solutions[14]
• Radioactive iron and its metabolism in anemia. Its absorption, transportation, and utilization[15]
• A Combined Voltage Regulating and Quenching Circuit for the Geiger‐Müller Counter[16]
• Radiation dosage to lungs from radon and its daughter products, Bale and Shapiro.[17]