[The Medical Atom: Radioisotopes in Internal Medicine in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1945-1965].

Radioisotopes were one of the defining innovations in clinical internal medicine in the post-war period. Medical university clinics used radioisotopes in the treatment of previously untreatable diseases and at the same time used them to study physiological processes in the laboratory. In the mid-1950s, new technical methods-such as scintigraphy-expanded the diagnostic and therapeutic repertoire of internal medicine. The article uses the example of isotope research to highlight the significance of technology-driven processes of change for the internal medicine clinic in West Germany. In addition, transfer processes between basic medical research and clinical research are examined and analyzed as a form of translational medicine avant la lettre.