Revigator

["Kevin Rolfe" <KDROLFE@sandia.gov>]

     Good day to all:
     
     Recently our organization acquired a Revigator.  For those of you who 
     might not know what a Revigator is, as I didn't.  It is a ceramic 
     crock approximately 31 cm in height and 24 cm in diameter.  It is 
     lined with radium ore and fitted with its own spigot.  To use the 
     Revigator, one would fill the container with water and wait several 
     hours to allow sufficient quantities of radium and radon to dissolve 
     into the solution and drink.  This was to be a healthy cure all. As 
     you might have guessed it is quite old, patented in 1912.
     
     Our goal is to display the Revigator in a museum and I am curious to 
     know if anyone out there has worked with one of these medical wonders 
     in the past.  If so, was the radium ore very well adhered to the 
     internal of the crock, or does it have a tendency to become loose?  
     Also how much Radium activity is in the crock?  We would also welcome 
     any suggestions as to how to display it so as to reduce the problem of 
     Radon buildup.  The Revigator is currently packaged and is fairly air 
     tight.  We would like to find out as much as we can before we start to 
     unpack it.
     
     Thank you in advance for any and all comments.  My personal address is 
     KDROLFE@SANDIA.GOV or just post it on radsafe, this is a fairly 
     interesting piece of history and I think others will be as curious as 
     I am.