Re: Radium -Reply

[Muckerheide <muckerheide@mediaone.net>]

Paul frame wrote regarding Mme. Curie's exposure:

<snip material on anemia diagnosis>
 
> Interestingly, her body and that of her husband were moved a couple of
> years ago to the Pantheon in Paris and an analysis was performed of
> their radium burdens. Unfortunately I don't have the details, but
> Pierre's remains were found to have a substantially higher amount of
> radium than those of Marie.

Ron Kathren commented a year or so ago that there was some data on her
body-burden available. Does anyone know the data?
 
> There is some reason to believe that a major, if not the major, exposure
> she received was from x-rays not radium. During W.W.I she was operating
> unshielded x-ray units at the battle front.

Amen. The discussion of her radium exposure should reflect the enormous doses
undoubedly received by manually operating x-ray machines for hours and days at
a time at the front lines using her 'radiologic car' and in the many field
hospitals that she started. She developed more than 200 units. She
aggressively recruited and trained (again, hands-on) hundreds of operators,
primarily in Paris, when she wasn't personally in the field.

I wondered whether you have some historical information on the dose-rate that
an operator would have received in such operation.

Note also that many of the UK radiologists had similar (though probably less
extensive) WW I experience with battlefield and hospital, leading to some
indication of adverse health effects in radiologists that started practice
before WW I that was not present in radiologists that started practice after
rudimentary rad protection started in 1921 (with lifetime dose estimates in
the range of 5 Sv).

> best wishes
> 
> Paul Frame
> Professional Training Programs
> ORAU
> framep@orau.gov
> http://www.orau.gov/ptp/ptp.htm
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Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
Radiation, Science, and Health
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