General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThose of us of a certain age, share your experience of our friend, the Peaceful Atom!
After WWII, there was a big push to assure people that radiation wasn't all that bad, so it crept into a number of uses that make one cringe today:
My sister and I both had birth marks taken off our legs with some sort of radiation - I was left with a small scar, she was left with a patch of scarred, burned skin the size of your palm.
I can also recall seeing vans where you could get a walk-in chest X-ray to check for TB!
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)and see the bones in your feet.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)It was simply fascinating to watch my very own toe-bones wiggle. I could have stood there and watched them for hours (and not had any feet by now, probably).
Archae
(46,262 posts)When the dangers of radiation became apparent, (I wonder how many shoe salespeople got cancer?) the company quickly folded.
Mairead
(9,557 posts)and it seemed to me that we kids had to troop down to the hospital and have a chest-xray every month (it probably wasn't that often, but it seemed like it) for years after.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)...on our way to Disneyland, where we were encouraged by the prospect of flying cars, robotic servants catering to our every whim, a 30-hour work week, and the Picture Phone, all by the year 2000.
One out of five isn't so great.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)...and we had some very, very, very, very beautiful glow-in-the-dark icicle Christmas tree decorations. Also powered by radium.
(It is incredibly beautiful... a deep crystalline blue, not the yellow-green of that safe glow in the dark stuff.)
I think the painters of glow-in-the-dark watch faces (with radium paint) were the first cases recognized of the problem. Painting those tiny numbers on a watch is close work and one has to continually "point" the brush in her mouth while working.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)It explains so much...