Re: radium dial painters

["Björn Cedervall" <bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com>]

>
>how much dose did the radium dial painters receive (circa 1925)?
I think there was a report published around 1931 by Martland (??)
-about 100 pages or so about the victims. That was probably the ref.
where it said that 7 grams (1/4 ounce) of bone material from one
of the victims gave 1000 alpha decays per second. The ref. should
be Am. J. of Cancer or some similar title of the journal.
I read this 23 years ago so please forgive my vagueness (I and
3 other guys wrote a review on radiation history, 31 pages). If
this is the right paper you may be able to find the total amounts
of radium that the girls/women had in their skeletons (tens of
micrograms or even more?) and from that make dose estimates. The
survivors exhaled measurable radon at least until around 1950.

Bjorn
bjorn_cedervall@hotmail.com
Depts. Medical Radiation Biology and Medical Radiation Physics,
Karolinska Institutet, Box 260,
S-171 76 Stockholm, Sweden
Ph/fax: Int + 468 343525 (Med. Radiation Physics)
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