radium

Etymology

Borrowed from French radium, from rad(ioactif) (“radioactive”) + -ium (suffix used to form the names of metallic elements).

noun

1. The chemical element (symbol Ra) with an atomic number of 88. It is a soft, shiny and silvery radioactive alkaline earth metal.
   Madame [Marie] Curie, working with her distinguished husband, isolated and first traced to its true origin the source of the marvellous power which has thus commenced to revolutionise our philosophy of physics. This new element has appropriately been named "Radium;" but it has also been shown that there are many other, though less powerful, radio-active elements, details of which are recorded in the sequel. To be precise, radium, per se, has not yet been isolated as a metal, but only in the form of salts,—chlorides and bromides. … It is supposed that the molecules of radium (composed of similar atoms) during their decomposition into those of the gas helium, are also frittered down into heat and, in part, are liberated as radio-activity. 1902, Ernest Howard Adye, “Radio-active Elements”, in Frank Rutley, Mineralogy (Murby’s “Science and Art Department” Series of Text-books), 15th revised and corrected edition, London: Thomas Murby & Co.,[…], →OCLC, page 234
   The persistence of radio-activity on glass vessels which have contained radium is remarkable. Filters, beakers, and dishes used in the laboratory for operations with radium, after having been washed in the usual way, remain radio-active: a piece of blende screen held inside the beaker or other vessel immediately glowing with the presence of radium. 2 April 1903, William Crookes, “The Emanations of Radium”, in Nature: A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science, volume 67, number 1744, London: Macmillan and Co.; New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, pages 522–523
   The object of this work is to determine how the radiums D, E, and F are separated from the substance known as radio-lead by certain chemical reactions. Recrystallisation of the nitrate from a neutral solution gradually removes the radium-F (polonium), which remains in the mother liquor, but does not appreciably influence the amounts of radiums D and E in the crystals. 1908, E. H[orton], “General and Physical Chemistry. [Radio-lead. Belá Szilard.]”, in J. C. Cain, editor, Journal of the Chemical Society. Abstracts of Papers on Physical, Inorganic, Mineralogical, Physiological, Agricultural, and Analytical Chemistry, volume XCIV, part II, London: Gurney & Jackson,[…], →OCLC, page 141
   Radium is formed by the breaking up of atoms of another element called uranium, but radium shows this breaking up process in its own atoms more distinctly than does uranium or any other element we know, and it is this breaking up that gives radium its astonishing properties such as the production of heat, electricity, and wave motions in the ether which are similar to the wave motions which produce the sensation of light to our eyes. 1919 December, Henriette Boeckmann, “Bringing the Stars to the People: It’s Easy to Get on Familiar Terms with Other Worlds at Clark Observatory”, in Waldemar Kaempffert, editor, Popular Science Monthly, volume 95, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Modern Publishing Company,[…], →OCLC, page 206, column 1
   As for myself, I had to devote again a great deal of time to the preparation of several decigrammes of very pure radium chloride. With this I achieved, in 1907, a new determination of the atomic weight of radium, and in 1910 I was able to isolate the metal. 1923, Marie Curie, “Autobiographical Notes: Marie Curie”, in Charlotte Kellogg, Vernon Kellogg, transl., Pierre Curie, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, chapter II, page 197
   Of the total, fifteen cases were treated surgically, seventeen by radium, one by a combination of the two methods, three by radium and X-ray, one by the Percy cautery, two by the cautery, and two by the cautery preceding the application of radium. 1923 September, Dewell Gann, “The Review of Forty Consecutive Cases of Carcinoma of the Cervix”, in The Urologic and Cutaneous Review, volume XXVII, number 9, St. Louis, Mo.: Urologic and Cutaneous Press, →OCLC, page 564, column 1
   As soon as it had been shown that skin burns could be caused by radium, medical men began to experiment in order to find out if malignant growths of the skin could be destroyed by the same agency. … Immense strides have been made in the technique of applying the radium to kill cancers. 1936, Wyndham E. B. Lloyd, “Radium”, in A Hundred Years of Medicine, London: Duckworth[…], published 1939, part II (Scientific Discovery in the Last Hundred Years), page 208
   Well, remember how the children of the State Orphanage became mysteriously ill? The doctors diagnosed it as radium poisoning, but how it happened was a first class mystery to them. There's no radium factory within miles of the orphanage. 1940 May–June, Charles Nicholas [pseudonym; Charles Nicholas Cuidera], “Mass Murder by Radioactive Salt”, in The Blue Beetle, number 2, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.: Fox Feature Syndicate, →OCLC, column 1
   The U.S. radium dial painters of the 1920s comprised an early cohort of several thousand workers at increased risk of developing radiation induced cancers. 2010, Charles L. Sanders, “Accidents, Tests, and Incidents”, in Radiation Hormesis and the Linear-No-Threshold Assumption, Heidelberg, Dordrecht: Springer-Verlag, →DOI, page 43
   Even as X-rays vied with radium as the preferred tool for biological experimentation in later decades, [Hermann Joseph] Muller continued to rely on radium not only as a mutagen, but also as an important conceptual tool, seeing radium and life as somehow intimately connected analogically, discursively, evolutionarily, mechanistically, and metaphysically. 2015, Luis A. Campos, “Transmutations and Disintegrations”, in Radium and the Secret of Life, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, page 247
2. (textiles, dated) A type of cloth woven from silk or synthetic yarn, often with a shiny appearance.
   City retailers are doing well with high-class radiums printed in bright greens, brilliant purples and strong yellows. Such are the high novelties. 11 January 1913, “[Dress Fabrics[…]] Silks Moving Well: An Excellent Business Assured for the Coming Spring Season”, in Dry Goods Economist, volume 67, number 3575, New York, N.Y.: The Textile Publishing Co., →OCLC, page 33, column 1
   In printed silks for outer garments and linings there are crêpe de chines, silk and cotton crêpes, georgettes, radiums and mousselines de soie. … [O]n radiums; Japanese print designs, silhouetted with parasols or flowers and shrubs, treated in Japanese style, on dark grounds, are employed. There are also a number of futuristic figures printed on radiums. 1920 June, “Many Novelties in French Silks”, in C. R. Clifford, editor, The American Silk Journal, volume XXXIX, number 6, New York, N.Y.: Clifford & Lawton, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 57, column 2
   Radium satins will also be used extensively in the spring season. 18 November 1922, “[Silk Goods Markets] Printed Crepes to be Leader for Spring: Radium Satins and Taffetas Will also Show Their Vantage Points”, in Textile World, volume LXII, number 21, New York, N.Y.: Bragdon, Lord & Nagle Co., →OCLC, page 73 (page 2927 overall), column 3
   Radium, a term rather loosely applied to the bulk of domestic cloths of this class, includes goods of two fairly distinct types. … It is often tightly woven under high tension and so finished as to produce a highly lustrous appearance. But high luster is not essential, for many high-grade radiums are given a more or less dull finish. Of whatever finish, various cloths of this type are manufactured sometimes under the designation radium and sometimes under special copyrighted names. 1926, United States Tariff Commission, “Classification of Broad Silks—Character of Domestic Production”, in Broad-silk Manufacture and the Tariff, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, →OCLC, section I (Classification of Broad Silks), page 114

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive, obsolete) To treat (a tumour, etc.) with radium.
   We want popular verbs for several operations introduced by modern science. The X-rays, the Finsen treatment for lupus, the operation of radium for cancer, and what not—what are the words for these? A man is guillotined or hanged; his leg is amputated; he is trepanned. What is it when he is rayed, Finsened, radiumed? [From the St. James's Gazette.] 1904 June, “Verbs Needed”, in A. H. McQuilkin, editor, The Inland Printer: The Leading Trade Journal of the World in the Printing and Allied Industries, volume XXXIII, number 3, Chicago, Ill.: The Inland Printer Company, →OCLC, page 359, column 2
   The victims thereof [i.e., of rheumatism] are drenched with salicylates and iodides; they are sent to spas to be bombarded by the doucheur and spanked by the masseur; they are subjected to electrical ecstasies and suffer Zander contortions; they are cataphoresed, vaccinated, serummed, radiumed and dieted, with results which vary from the sublime to the pathetic. 1914 April, Leonard Williams, “The Byways of Thyroid Deficiency”, in H. Edwin Lewis, Charles E. Woodruff, editors, American Medicine, volume IX (New Series; volume XX overall), number 4, Burlington, Vt., New York, N.Y.: American Medical Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 272
   The problem that we have to face in radiuming tumors is very complicated. … [T]he problem of distribution is to distribute throughout the territory irradiated an even dose, and we have found that that is a very difficult thing. 13 April 1915 – 15 April 1915, Curtis F. Burnam, “Discussion of Symposium on Treatment of Bladder Tumors”, in Transactions of the American Urological Association[…], Brookline, Mass.: Printed for the [American Urological] Association at the Riverdale Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 229
   Towards the end he was attended by Dr. Hymie Rubin. The great specialists with their fabulous bills had cut and radiumed to the tune of tumbling doubloons. … But the priceless surgeons said—too late: they could not repair the digestive engine after it had been knocked to pieces by years of neglect and abuse … 1923 August, [Samuel Ornitz], “[Seventh Period] Chapter I”, in Haunch, Paunch and Jowl: An Anonymous Autobiography, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright Publishers, published July 1924, →OCLC, page 289