Document x5GX92QonZgJQROJYGXMDg20y

306 NOTES TO PAGES 94-97 75. Erich Neitzel, "Berufsschadigungen durch radioaktive Substanzen/' Arbeitsmedizin 1 (1935): 13. Paul Lazarus in his Handbuch der gesamten Strahlenheilkunde II (Munich: Bergmann, 1931) ridiculed radium compresses as a use less swindle, but as late as 1940 Vienna's Institut fur Radiumtherapie was rec ommending radon inhalation for various ailments; see V. Karg, "Kfinstliche Radiumemanationstherapie fur den praktischen Arzt," Wiener medizinische Wochensdirift 90 (1940): 97 ff. and 119 ff. 76. Neitzel, "Berufsschadigungen," p. 14. 77. "Die finnische Badestube," Der Balneologe 8 (1941): 113-14. Germany, with its twelve officially recognized Radiumkurorte, was hailed about this time as "the land of radium baths"; see Boris Rajewsky, "Balneologische Forschung," Der Balneologe 9 (1942): 221. 78. Erich Wollmann, "Natfirliche und kunstliche Radiumwasser," Der Bal neologe 6 (1939): 386-89. The so-called Salzufler Bestimmung of 1932 had spec ified minimal levels of radioactivity producing a "medical effect" for radon inhalation (3 nanocuries per liter), bathing (30 nanocuries per liter), and drink ing (300 nanocuries per liter); see Erich Wollmann, "Die Technik der Einatmung radonhaltiger Luft," Der Balneologe 5 (1938): 60-66. 79. Erich Marx, "Die Radiumgefahr in Deutschland," Neue Freie Presse, Sep tember 25,1932, p. 25, and September 27,1932, p. 9; compare also the dismis sive response of Albert Femau, a Viennese professor of medical physics and radium chemistry, who argued that it was wrong to draw too close a compar ison with the Joachimsthal miners, since the lung cancers prevalent there must have been caused by rock dust as well as radium exposure; see his "Die Ra diumgefahr in Deutschland," Neue Freie Presse, October 4, 1932, p. 9. Femau also took comfort from the argument of Stefan Meyer, head of Vienna's Institut fur Radiumforschung, that most of the radon inhaled during emanation ther apy was quickly expelled from the lungs. 80. The best history of the U.S. radium dial painters is Claudia Clark's Ra dium Girls: Women and Industrial Health Reform, 1910-1935 (Chapel Hill: Univer sity of North Carolina Press, 1997). 81. P. Rossing, "Uber eine ungewohnliche Form der Radiumvergiftung in der Leuchtfarbenindustrie," ArchivfUr Gewerbepathologie und Gewerbehygiene 11 (1942): 395-401. 82. There are other examples of poisoning connected with the chemical iso lation of radium: in Joachimsthal in 1928, for example, apart from the miners there were also sixty workers involved in extracting and purifying radium, at least five of whom contracted lung cancer. Three had been miners, but two had never worked underground. A 1935 review of radiation health and safety con cluded that the cases "could be attributed only to radiation" (Neitzel, "Berufs schadigungen," p. 29). 83. Friedrich H. Harting and Walter Hesse, "Der Lungenkrebs, die Bergkrankheit in den Schneeberger Gruben," Vierteljahrsschrift fur gerichtliche Medizin 30 (1879): 300, and 31 (1879): 109-112,325. Harting and Hesse's paper is one of the classics of epidemiology, tracing the lung cancer epidemic to chang ing work practices (e.g., the increase in piecework), changing technologies NOTES TO PAGE 97 307 (e.g., the use of dynamite), and changing patterns of ore in the earth (depletion of strongly irritating ores, which had formerly caused extra-high exposures); see ibid., pp. 319-21. 84. Julius Lowy, "Uber die Joachimstaler Bergkrankheit; vorlaufige Mitteilung," Medizinische Klinik 25 (1929): 141-42. Lowy here describes the first two cases of lung cancer diagnosed among Joachimsthal miners--one discov ered at autopsy at Prague's Pathologisches Institut in 1926, the second in 1928 at Wilhelm Nonnenbruch's clinic at the same university. Herman Sikl in 1930 reported lung cancers in eight of ten Joachimsthal miners autopsied; see his "Uber den Lungenkrebs der Bergleute in Joachimstal (Tschechoslowakei)," Zeitschriftfur Krebsforschung 32 (1930): 609-13. 85. Neitzel, "Berufsschadigungen," p. 19; also Hueper, Occupational Tumors, pp. 435-56. The first to publish a radiation etiology for the Schneeberger dis ease was Margarete Uhlig; see her "Uber den Schneeberger Lungenkrebs," Archiv fur pathologische Anatomie und Physiologic 230 (1921): 76-98. Erich Marx in 1932 stated unequivocally that Joachimsthal's high lung cancer rate was traceable to "radon and its daughter products" (Radon und seine Zerfallsprodukte)-, see his "Radiumgefahr," p. 25. 86. Paul Ludewig and Eduard Lorenser, "Untersuchung der Grubenluft in den Schneeberger Gruben auf den Gehalt an Radiumemanation," Zeitschriftfur Physik 22 (1924): 178-85. Heinrich Mache and Stefan Meyer in 1905 were appar ently the first to detect "radium emanation" in the mines of Joachimsthal; see Werner Schiittmann, "Aus den Anfangen der Radontherapie," Zeitschrift fur die gesamte innere Medizin 41 (1986): 451-56. Carl Schiffner, M. Weidig, and R. Friedrich in 1908 reported up to 2,050 ME/1 in water issuing from the mines around Joachimsthal; see their Radioaktive Wdsser in Sachsen, I-IV (Freiberg: Craz & Gerlach, 1908-1912), p. 63. There was no suggestion of a possible dan ger; the primary concern was whether such waters were radioactive enough to be put to "medical uses" (p. 119). A postwar review prepared for U.S. military authorities noted that the maximum value ever recorded in the air of a Ger man mine was 150 ME; see Gerhard Kahlau and A. Schraub, "Krebserzeugung durch Strahlung, insbesondere Schneeberger Lungenkrebs," in Biophysics: Part I, ed. Boris Rajewsky and Michael Schon (Wiesbaden: Office of Military Government, 1948), p. 134. 87. Rostoski, Saupe, and Schmorl, "Die Bergkrankheit," pp. 360-84. There were about 700 miners active in the Schneeberg region during peak produc tion in the 1880s; by 1921 this had fallen to 149 (p. 363). This number fell to 54 in 1926, and the mines were closed shortly thereafter. 88. Neitzel, "Berufsschadigungen," p. 20. The arsenic experiment in ques tion was performed by Schmittmann, "Experimentelle Untersuchungen fiber die Wirkung des Schneeberger Staubes auf das Bronchial-Epithel," Zeitschrift fur Krebsforschung 32 (1930): 677 ff. Rostoski et al. in 1926 had proposed that animals be reared in the mines to see whether "radium emanation" (radon) alone was sufficient to cause the disease; see their "Die Bergkrankheit," p. 374. Teutschlaender in 1931 exposed mice, axolotls, and carp to radon, assum ing this to be the cause of the Schneeberger Krankheit, but he was not able to