Roentgen (unit) capped at 3 MeV in 1950. The USSR all-union committee of standards (GOST) had meanwhile adopted a significantly different definition of the roentgen in 1934. GOST standard 7623 defined it as "the physical dose of X-rays which produces charges each of one electrostatic unit in magnitude per cm of irradiated volume in air at 0 °C and normal atmospheric pressure when ionization is complete." The distinction of physical dose from dose caused confusion, some of which may have led Cantrill and Parker report that the roentgen had become shorthand for 83 ergs per gram (0.0083 Gy) of tissue. They named
Roentgen equivalent man Roentgen equivalent man The roentgen equivalent man (or rem) is an older, CGS unit of equivalent dose, effective dose, and committed dose which are measures of the health effect of low levels of ionizing radiation on the human body. Quantities measured in rem are designed to represent the stochastic biological risk of ionizing radiation; primarily radiation-induced cancer. These quantities are derived from absorbed dose, which in the CGS system has the unit rad which is also an older unit. There is no universally applicable conversion constant from rad to rem; the conversion depends on relative biological effectiveness (RBE). The rem