Constance "Connie" Annie Poyser Wood (1897–1985) was a pioneer of radiotherapy, leading research units in London when the speciality was being established.

[3] She had to resign from her position there after a favourable report on her work by Sir William Bragg was broadcast by BBC News on 6 December 1938, which was thought to breach a requirement for prior approval by the hospital.

[4] In 1942, she became director of the Radiotherapeutic Research Unit at Hammersmith Hospital where, in 1952, she introduced an 8 MeV linear accelerator – the first to be used for medical treatment.

[5] With her deputy, Louis Harold Gray, she then organised the construction of the first cyclotron to be installed in a hospital and this was inaugurated by the Queen in 1955.

While she was lecturing students about his case, he put his pet white rat down her neck and the "reaction was gratifyingly feminine".