Bask in the Glow
If you needed "a cure for the living dead" or required "perpetual sunshine" between 1918-1928, you could take Radithor. It was a patent medicine whose active ingredient was radium isotopes. One man took so much his jaw had to be surgically removed.
Marie Curie's discovery of radioactive elements caught the nation's imagination. Radioactivity was viewed as a new kind of energy and was assumed to have healing powers.
Products that touted radioactivity as a special ingredient included radium toothpaste that was meant to whiten your teeth; a radioactive box that supposedly measured your feet for perfectly fitting shoes; bath salts; luminous watch dials and other glowing instruments for airplanes, etc.; a food additive and preservative; dishes; radioactive water; condoms and other sex-related items intended to boost performance.
Radium products were sold as treatments for rheumatism and arthritis.
Today, radiation therapy is currently limited to cancer treatment, although you can still find radium springs around the world that tout the low levels of radiation as a health benefit.
Marie Curie's discovery of radioactive elements caught the nation's imagination. Radioactivity was viewed as a new kind of energy and was assumed to have healing powers.
Products that touted radioactivity as a special ingredient included radium toothpaste that was meant to whiten your teeth; a radioactive box that supposedly measured your feet for perfectly fitting shoes; bath salts; luminous watch dials and other glowing instruments for airplanes, etc.; a food additive and preservative; dishes; radioactive water; condoms and other sex-related items intended to boost performance.
Radium products were sold as treatments for rheumatism and arthritis.
Today, radiation therapy is currently limited to cancer treatment, although you can still find radium springs around the world that tout the low levels of radiation as a health benefit.
