Ernest Rock Carling

Sir Ernest Rock Carling (1877–1960) was a British surgeon, war veteran and pioneering radiologist best known for his association with Westminster Hospital.

Surgeon Carling joined the staff of the Westminster Hospital in 1906 after serving at the Imperial Yeomanry Field Hospital as a medical student during the South African war. In 1910, Rock Carling was acting as Dean of the Westminster Hospital Medical School.

Radiologist In 1928, Carling established a radium centre at the Westminster Hospital, where with the assistance of his son Francis Carling, he set up the first "radium bombs". An example of a "radium bomb" can be seen at the Science Museum Group in the Medicine: Wellcome Galleries. Rock Carling became a member of the Medical Research Council and the Radium Trust that year.

In 1929, Carling authored a Course of instruction in radium practice. His later publications include: British Surgical Practice (which he wrote with J. P. Ross in 1947).

In 1950, following the publication of an estimate of the human toll of a hypothetical atomic explosion over London, Carling stated that "to live in the atomic age is perforce to accept the implications: Fully faced they are robbed of half their terrors." In 1951, he was quoted in American newspapers as stating that efficient medical treatments had been developed to counter the effects of almost all known biological weapons.

Cancer treatment unit In 1954, Rock Carling opened Britain's first Cobalt therapy cancer treatment unit at the Bristol General Hospital.

In 1955, Carling wrote British Practice in Radiotherapy with B. W. Windeyer and D. W. Smithers.