Re: Radioactive tingle

[Harald Weiss <weiss@ki.comcity.de>]

g2v13a@swbell.net schrieb:
> 
> It may suprize some to find that there is at least a related
> issue that is reported by cancer patients under treatment
> (with 4-6MV x-rays) that includes the mouth.  The report
> is that they can "taste" the radiation, but only while the
> beam is on.  While these reports are easy to dismiss, a
> common thread emerges if one digs deeper - all of these
> patients (a small sub-set of the larger patient population)
> have a regular filling(s) and a gold crown(s).

This shouldn't be so surprizing. I repeatedly tasted a kind of
'metallic' taste, when I let different metals come into contact inside
my mouth, which produced an electrochemical potential (as well as when I
licked the poles of a 9V-battery to see if it's still full). The source
are probably metal-ions going into solution. In the presence of strong
fields of ionizing radiation, gold and amalgam, galvanically connected
via ionized spittle, might form such a galvanic element, too.

Harald

---
Harald Weiss                           weiss@ki.comcity.de
Preetzer Strasse 263
D-24147 Kiel (Germany)
..


************************************************************************
The RADSAFE Frequently Asked Questions list, archives and subscription
information can be accessed at http://www.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/radsafe.html