Radithor bottle (25799475341)
Back in the 1920s, people thought that drinking radium- and thorium- infused water was healthy. One of the more famous varieties of this water was sold under the brand name Radithor. It was eventually famously implicated in the illness and subsequent death of an industrialist named Eben Byers, which was accompanied by the headline of "The Radium Water Worked Fine until His Jaw Came Off" (personally my favorite headline ever).
Photo taken at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I had known the story of Eben Byers for a while, so this little vial sparked my interest immensely.
This image is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. I did this for this image (not all of mine, most are all rights reserved), as I believe that scientific and historical knowledge and images are worth sharing with the world; this license means that you are free to use my image in whatever way you want, so long as you give me credit ("Attribution") and keep the same license on it.Relevante Bilder
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RadithorRadithor war ein radioaktives Mittel, das aus dreifach destilliertem Wasser bestand, in dem die Radium-Isotope 226Ra und 228Ra gelöst waren, so dass es über eine Aktivität von mindestens einem Mikrocurie verfügte. .. weiterlesen
Geschichte des StrahlenschutzesDie Geschichte des Strahlenschutzes beginnt an der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert mit der Erkenntnis, dass ionisierende Strahlung aus natürlichen und künstlichen Strahlenquellen eine schädigende Wirkung auf lebende Organismen haben kann. Sie ist damit auch die Geschichte der Strahlenschädigungen. .. weiterlesen