000			02122 a2200265 4500
999			_c10617 _d10617
020			_a9781785786075
050			_aQD181. _bSAN 2020
100			_aSantos, Lucy Jane _eauthor
245			_aHalf lives : _bthe unlikely history of radium / _cLucy Jane Santos
264			_aLondon : _bIcon Books, _c 2020.
300			_a280 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm
336			_2rdacontent _atext _btxt
337			_2rdamedia _aunmediated _bn
338			_2rdacarrier _avolume _bnc
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (pages [265]-270) and index
520			_a Of all the radioactive elements discovered at the end of the 19th century, it was radium that became the focus of both public fascination and entrepreneurial zeal. Half Lives tells the fascinating, curious, sometimes macabre story of the element through its ascendance as a desirable item, a present for a queen, a prize in a treasure hunt, a glow-in-the-dark dance costume, to its role as a supposed cure-all in everyday 20th-century life, when medical practitioners and business people (reputable and otherwise) devised ingenious ways of commodifying the new wonder element, and enthusiastic customers welcomed their radioactive wares into their homes. Historian Lucy Jane Santos, herself the proud owner of a formidable collection of radium beauty treatments, delves into the stories of these products and details the gradual downfall and discredit of the radium industry through the eyes of the people who bought, sold and eventually came to fear the once-fetishized substance. She reveals a new history of radium, one in which the stories of those previously dismissed as quacks and fools are brought to life, as part of a unique examination of the interplay between science and popular culture.
650			_aRadium industry _xHistory.
650			_aRadium _x History.
650			_aRadium -- Therapeutic use _xHistory.
650			_aRadium _xPhysiological effect.
650			_aRadium.
650			_aRadium industry.
650			_aRadium _xTherapeutic use.
942			_2lcc _cBK _h181 _iSAN _kQD