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    "localId": "75722891",
    "label": "Letters Received to H.H. Barker, June 9, 1928",
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    "id": "75722891",
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    "title": "Letters Received to H.H. Barker, June 9, 1928",
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        "Safety Light Collection",
        "Records Related to Radium Dial Painters"
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    "seq": 2,
    "pageIndex": 0,
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    "ocrText": "UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI\nCOLUMBIA\nDEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY\nwith Dr. Robnett, in which the cases of the girls who claimed to be suffering\nwith radium poisoning were discussed. Dr. Robnett has had a wide experinece\nin radium therapy, but I serously doubt whether he has mastered the scientific\naspect of radioactive changes. Among other matters he Sited the death of two\nphysicists who had charge of the separation and tubing of the radium emanation\nin their hospital. These men occasionally had accidents and thus Anhaled\nquantities of radium emanation. Two of these men, he stated;\nto\nanemia, and if I understood him correctly he ascribed this disease to the\nactive deposit resulting from the emanation. These men never had occasion\nto\ningest solid radium salts. He also ascribed some of the effects to the active\ndeposits on the walls of the room and on the objects in the room, claiming that\nthe men were exposed to these radiations continuously and I gained the impres-\nsion that he considered the radium poisoning of the girls in similar light.\nThat ip, it was the active deposit which caused the necrosis. I doubt whether\nDr. Robnett takes into consideration the fact that the active deposit decays\nvery, very rapidly indeed, and that the product of slow decay Radium D, is\niso-topic with lead. and will thus be readily eliminated from the system, leaving\nno chance for the polonium to be produced in the system. I simply site this\ncase as a typical example to illustrate the point I made in the previous para-\ngraph- that medical mon, even experts in the use of radium, are not adequately\nposted in the science of radioactivity. I think this is an element in the\nsituation which must not be overlooked. It is difficult to contend with.\nComing now to your report entitled \"The Experimental Determination\nof the Radium Present in Living Persons\". There is one point in the paper\nwhich must be established on a much firmer basis before we can think of publi-\ncation. In making the determination of the emanation present in the expired\nair from Mrs. Dumshoff we obtained a value which I considered to be quite un-\ncertain. A good deal depends upon the accuracy of thesdetermination. If I\ninterpret correctly a set of readings which you made and which Dr. Flinn sent\nme on expired air from Mrs. Dumshoff, it seems to me that the value we obtained\nis incorrect and therefore that the value of the emanating power of redium de-\nposited in the bone marrow is quite too high. These experiments should be re-\npeated.\nComing now to the detection of emanation in expired air by the\nscintillation method; our boys on the crystallizing work tried thisemethod\nduring the winter. Our experiments were entirely qualitatively. They simply\nset up a Zinc sulfide screen and focused on it a microscope magnifying it\nforty times. I happened to have one of the Watson type called Holos, which\nare used in Rutherfords laboratory, as well as in the Vienna Laboratory for\ncounting scintillations. The boys simply let their breath impiene on the\nscreen and then they observed the scintillation. But since we had another\ndevise, namely; the detection and counting of single Alpha particles in an\nionization chamber, which could be used both in the daytime and at night\nthey generally used the latter way of testing expired air. Our experiments\nare not of a quantitative nature==that is we have not standardized the Zinc\nscreen. We can easily do this with one of the types of apparatus which I\nhave set up. (See figure I on inclosed sketch. Figure 2 gives a very simpli-\nfied form) Would it not be very interesting to set up one of these and\nexperiment with the expired air from Mrs. Dumshoff?\nWith very kindest regards, I remain,\nHerman Sehlurdd\nHerman Schlundt\nHS/BB"
}