Pierre and Marie Curie won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 “in recognition of the extraordinary services they have rendered by their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel” (3). Radium will always be tied to its discoverer, the remarkable Marie Curie. Though it fell out of favor within 30 years of its discovery, radium was vitally important to the discovery and characterization of radioactivity. Five “Radium Girls” died as a result of their ingestion of the radioactive element and the resulting scandal branded radium a killer (2). The girls would even paint their nails and teeth with the radium paint to make themselves glow in the dark. The dentist learned that the girls would lick their radium-laced paintbrush bristles to make the tips finer. ![]() ![]() A New Jersey dentist noticed that several of the factory girls who painted watch dials had developed “diseased jawbones that failed to heal after dental work” (1). Famously, radium was used for its luminous properties to make watch dials glow in the dark. One company advertised it as “liquid sunshine” (2). It was used to treat “almost everything from impotence to insanity” (1). Marketed as a cure-all, radium was an ingredient in a variety of over-the-counter nostrums, from face creams to tonic waters. In the 1920s, many Americans and Europeans were regularly consuming radium. Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Email
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |