JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
I found this very arresting image on the wonderful Whewell's Ghost history of science/medicine/tech roundup (https://whewellsghost.wordpress.com), edited by Thony Christie (of the excellent The Renaissance Mathematicus blog, https://thonyc.wordpress.com/ and twitter account @rmathematicus). This cure-all was being sold by Radium Limited U.S.A. (25 West 45th St, NYC1) around 1900, which means that like many quake devices it hit the shelves for public consumption not long after a scientific discovery it sought to exploit--in this case the discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie in 1898. The toxicity factors of radium at this stage was not yet known, though the new-remarkableness of radium led some to establish a for-profit belief that the stuff in all of its glorious newness should be taken internally for the treatment of whatever quack-inspired ideas came to mind. One shriveling aspect in the text is that when used in therapy the radium-infused radioluminescent elixir was the only one of its kind to be visible in the dark. Modern knowledge aside, it is probably a good thing to abide the anonymous non-soliphisms of (1) never drinking anything that you can't lift with one hand, and (2) never drink anything that glows.
The full pamphlet is reproduced by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia http://www.cppdigitallibrary.org/exhibits/show/radium/item/4351
Notes:
- The pamphlet has a hand-changed address of 22 W. 45th St, the original building now evidently gone, replaced by the Berkeley Building in 1917. Post-appropriately right across the street is the Cock and Bull Pub.)
[Source: College of Physicians of Philadelphia http://www.cppdigitallibrary.org/exhibits/show/radium/item/4351]
Comments