[Milsurplus] Radium

[J. Marshall Reber]

Prof. Robley Evans , at my Alma Mater MIT, determined the amount of Radium one could safely ingest by his investigations of the Radium Girl Dial Painters who pointed their brushes on their lips.  He and his students continued to examine those women who had ingested Radium but had not developed bone cancer by measuring the Radon Gas that they exhaled in their breath.  After decades of reexamining such women he discovered that statistically they were living longer than the ordinary population. The government stopped supporting these examinations before all the women had died.  This was a lost opportunity that will unfortunately never be available again.

Of all the uses of radio luminous compounds in WWII,  the most radioactive were probably the discs about two inches in diameter that glowed in the dark and were used for position indication.  These show up regularly on eBay and I know some one who has had his purchase recently delivered by the US Postal Service from a foreign source.  It seems most unlikely that Homeland Security would pass such and divert some toggle switches on electronic gear.

Nevertheless it would seem imprudent to ingest or inhale radio luminous compounds along with many other household products.


J. Marshall Reber, ScD