Central Nervous System Syndrome

[Sam Painter <sam.painter@srs.gov>]

Ralph North wrote:
     
>  1) I bought a patch at a flea market for "Atomic City Smallbore",
>Oak Ridge, 1955. Does anyone know what it is/was or have any
>interesting history on it? 
     
>  2) What is the mechanism by which large acute doses damage the
>central nervous system?

I have a paper from the Journal of Occupational Medicine titled "Acute 
Radiation Death Resulting from an Accidental Nuclear Criticality Excursion".  
This paper is a special supplement dated March 1961.  I don't know how easy 
it will be for you to find it.  Below are the table of contents:
Introduction
I.   Description of the Accident and Subsequent Events
II.  Clinical Course of Case K.
III. Clinical Pathology and Biochemistry
IV.  Gross and Microscopic Pathology and Neuropathology
V.   Special Studies
VI.  Dosimetric Calculations
VII. Health Physics Studies and Area Radiation Levels
VIII.Report on Other Personnel Exposed
IX.  Summary

It's been a while since I read this paper and I don't currently have the 
time to go through it.  The patient (K) received an estimated 3900 to 4900 
rads to the whole body, with an incident dose to the upper abdomen 
calculated to be ~12,000 rads, neutron & gamma.  K promptly went into shock 
and was unconscious within a few minutes of the accident.  Through medical 
treatment, K was brought out of shock but died 35 hours accident.

Principal Authors are Thomas L. Shipman, MD, C. C. Lushbaugh, MD, Donald F. 
Petersen, PhD, Wright H. Langham, PhD, Payne S. Harris, MD, and James N. P. 
Lawrence, MA.

If you can't get this paper, you might look for works by the same authors.
Hope this helps,
_________________________________________________________________
    _/_/_/   _/ _/_/   _/_/_/   Sam Painter
  _/        _/_/  _/ _/        Nuclear Criticality Safety
  _/_/_/   _/        _/_/_/   Westinghouse Savannah River Co
      _/  _/             _/  Bldg 704-59F   Aiken, SC 29802
_/_/_/   _/        _/_/_/   (803) 952-3934 sam.painter@srs.gov
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"You cannot have the right to do what is wrong." - Alan Keys