Radium

Radium is a radioactive chemical element which has the symbol Ra and atomic number 88.

The heaviest of the alkaline earth metals, radium is intensely radioactive. This metal is found in tiny quantities in the uranium ore pitchblende, and various other uranium minerals. When freshly prepared, pure radium metal is brilliant white, but blackens when exposed to air (probably due to nitride formation). Radium is luminescent (giving a faint blue color), reacts violently with water and oil to form radium hydroxide and is slightly more volatile than barium. The normal phase of radium is a solid.

Radium was formerly used in self-luminous paints for watches, nuclear panels, aircraft switches, clocks, and instrument dials. More than 100 former watch dial painters who used their lips to shape the paintbrush died from the radiation from the radium that had become stored in their bones. Soon afterward, the adverse effects of radioactivity became widely known. Radium was still used in dials as late as the 1950s. Although tritium's beta radiation is potentially dangerous if ingested, it has replaced radium in these applications.

During the 1930s it was found that workers' exposure to radium by handling luminescent paints caused serious health effects which included sores, anemia and bone cancer. This use of radium was stopped soon afterward. This is because radium is treated as calcium by the body, and deposited in the bones, where radioactivity degrades marrow and can mutate bone cells. The litigation and ultimate deaths of five "Radium Girl" employees who had used radium-based luminous paints on the dials of watches and clocks had a significant impact on the formulation of occupational disease labor law.

Radium was also put in some foods for taste and as a preservative, but also exposed many people to radiation. Radium was once an additive in products like toothpaste, hair creams, and even food items due to its supposed curative powers. Such products soon fell out of vogue and were prohibited by authorities in many countries, after it was discovered they could have serious adverse health effects. (See for instance Radithor.) Spas featuring radium-rich water are still occasionally touted as beneficial, such as those in Misasa, Tottori, Japan. In the U.S., nasal radium irradiation was also administered to children to prevent middle ear problems or enlarged tonsils from the late 1940s through early 1970s.