(Unknown Photographer, 1932)
The first experiments on the biological properties of radium were successfully made in France, with samples from our laboratory, while my husband was living. The results were, at once, encouraging, so that the new branch of medical science, called radiumtherapy (in France, Curietherapy), developed rapidly, first in France and later in other countries. To supply the radium wanted for this purpose, a radium-producing industry was established.
- Marie Curie, 1923
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In the early 1900's, radium was considered a cure-all and became highly sought-after. Everyday items, from cosmetics and tonics to toiletries and instrument dials, utilized radium.
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Radium has heretofore been a magic word, associated with the laboratory - the plaything of science. But Science's plaything of today is the commonplace commodity of tomorrow and already radium is the basis of a rapidly growing industry. It is perhaps the newest of all our industries and certainly one of the least understood. So far there are only three or four companies in the whole world producing radium commercially and the product of the largest of these is about an ounce of the precious metal a year. But this is no insignificant amount, when it is considered that the total amount of pure radium in the world today is only about five ounces and that the market value is $120,000 a gram - and a gram is one twenty-eighth of an ounce [...] It will be a surprise to many to discover that such a highly valuable material could be used in the production of a two-dollar watch.
- H.A. Mount, 1920, Scientific American
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As it decays, radium releases gamma rays, which kill and mutate cells in the human body. Approximately 20% of the substance ingested enters the bloodstream and accumulates in the bones. "Radium jaw" is one of the most common radium deformities.
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Radium eats the bone as steadily and surely as fire burns wood.
- Grace Fryer
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("Radium Was a Miracle Product, Until it Started Killing People") Source: Seeker. 2017.
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