Hounsfield, Godfrey Newbold (1919-2004)

English engineer who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1979 for the development of the computed axial tomography (CAT) scan, the application of computer techniques to X-raying the human body. He was knighted in 1981.

Hounsfield was born in Newark, Nottinghamshire, and studied at the City and Guilds College, London, and the Faraday House Electrical Engineering College. He joined British electronics company EMI (now Thorn EMI) in 1951 as a researcher in medical technology.

The EMI scanner he invented in 1972, a computerized transverse axial tomography system for X-ray examination, enables the whole body to be screened at one time. The X-ray crystal detectors, more sensitive than film, are rotated round the body and can distinguish between, for example, tumours and healthy tissue.