Ummm....don't laugh. The Germans had a fetish for that stuff: This one's my favorite: Full story here: http://alistofsurprises.blogspot.com/2010/05/liquid-sunshine-radiums-rise-and-fall.html http://mentalfloss.com/article/24871/11-ways-we-used-radiation-everyday-life People actually though that glowing in the dark was good for you back in the 1930's. It's amazing that we all weren't born with three eyes or two noses after reading some of this. Scary, isn't it? gatorcpa
Three eyes, two noses - reminds me of some customers over the years. Well that's whats left of the business gone
The older panerais had radium issues. I remember the girls that worked there thought it was fun to put it on their nails or even their teeth and then got terribly ill.
Really, really did people do this... "Thus the use of these Suppositories has an effect on the human body like recharging has on an electric battery." Radium Suppositories, now I think I've seen it all...If there was only one rule in life it would have been, never stick anything that glows in your arse!!! Hail to the "health-giving electric atoms."
Interesting this topic is coming up. I would suggest this book if you ever want a pretty good read about the use or Radium in watches. I selected it for our book club this month. It will be interesting to hear or resident radiologist in the group discuss his thoughts on the topic. The book talks about the women working in factories that produced watch and aircraft instrument dials before the health hazards were completely understood. It discuses the horrible health related problems the women developed and how the industry regulations changed because of the use of Radium.
Yeah they were one of the first worker va employer cases that set precedence for future treatment of employees. Radium is thought of as calcium and then replaces your bone marrow. Terrible stuff... 1602 years half life...
We're probably doing something right now that will seem as strange and unhealthy to those reading about it in 100 years or so. Just wish I knew what it was so I could stop.
Mobile phones near your brain? Sugar in soft drinks? Corn syrup? Particles from diesel emissions? Continuously connected to the internet? Processed food? The list is just too long
I see things like the above as reminders that we don't know it all. To Darlinboy's point, there are things we do now that may be seen as strange, ineffective and/or unhealthy by future generations. To Aussie Jim's point, in some cases, we already know that some of these things are unhealthy and yet we continue to perpetuate them. I also wonder about what major but simple breakthroughs are right under our noses but we just can't see them yet (kind of like the benefits of washing hands before performing surgery is obvious to us now, but wasn't always).
In my opinion, no risk in wearing a watch containing radium as the risk is ingestion based and that only wrist skin is directly exposed. However, I would not wear daily a pocket watch with radium in the pants pocket, close to the gonads. Below some interesting literature on the topic, with a focus on dose calculations based on different scenarios : http://www.google.ch/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjGocS9qZDKAhXBKQ8KHQ6_DyQQFgghMAA&url=http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML0731/ML073120009.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHuMFDLA7ZBrsNoVwuO57LvhIpcFA&bvm=bv.110151844,d.ZWU
Did anyone ever measure radon or gaseous tritium concentration in the air due to its timepiece collection ? I read somewhere that approx. 5 % of the tritium escapes the watch annually in the form of a gas
These pictures look like they're straight from the Fallout 4 marketing campaign ;-) It wasn't just the Germans...there was a whole 'radium craze' following Curie's 1898 discovery and, more importantly, Soddy's popular 1909 book 'The interpretation of radium' which explained it to lay people. Some scholars link the radium craze to the more general rise of scientism (the ideology which held that the natural sciences offer the only correct view of the world). In any case, it was clearly an important precondition for the popularity of the 'atomic age' later that century. On topic: no, I'm not worried. I tend not to ingest, unlike the woman in the image below. The radiation emanating from the dial is weak, and partially absorbered by the glass. Were I to work with radium dials, I would take precautions against inhalation. PS The answer to the question in the picture is "no, but in sufficiently high doses of might prevent you from getting older".