Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium by Lucy Jane Santos looks at the history of human interaction with radium and related chemical elements.

Half Lives is a very comprehensive history of the discovery and use of radium in the western world at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The author explains the complex nature of radium, uranium and radon in a simple way so non-scientific readers (like myself) can understand it.

The history itself is a fascinating one which moves from the realms of science, to medicine, to theatre and cosmetics. It is quite unbelievable what people in the 1920s and 1930s were prepared to put on their skin and into their bodies.

This book is intriguing and a great read.
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Shortly after radium was isolated, an atmosphere of enthusiasm and inventiveness took over Europe and the U.S. It was the early 1900s, radioactivity was revered, radium was celebrated in poems. Scientists, medical practitioners and entrepreneurs -some well-meaning other totally unscrupulous- launched treatments and products that now sound hysterically dangerous. Radium could do anything. It could enhance sexual virility and conquer baldness. It was in condoms, toothpaste, corsets, hair tonics, infant food, creams that gave you a glowing complexion, products that provided “abundant physical fitness” (whatever that meant) and fluids that promised to cure cancer “in all forms, locations and stages.” In the early 20th century, New Yorkers could even buy golf balls filled with radioactive materials that ensured a “high degree radiant energy” and a longer ball fly (the idea of radioactive golf balls was resurrected the 1950s with atomic golf balls that were easy to locate with the help of a Geiger counter.)

I’m particularly fond of William Thomas Green Morton’s early 20th century “liquid sunshine therapy” which combined radium, water and light, a distant precursor of Trump’s light and disinfectant coronavirus treatment.

Most of those quack remedies and bizarre objects were readily available. You could buy them at your local chemist, in department stores or even order them by postal mail. Unsurprisingly, there was no safety regulation regarding the transport of radioactive material. Good thing then that due to the prohibitive cost of radium at the time, most of these products contained neither radium neither any of its weaker derivatives.

The first radon spa in the world opened in 1906 in St Joachimsthal, now Jáchymov in the Czech Republic. St Joachimsthal was the number 1 source of radium in the world. And radon, a decay product of radium, was a cheap way to get a bit of that radium magic.

Realising that the water surrounding the mine could be radioactive, the town capitalised on the interest of the use of radium in medical treatments and started promoting its water cures. The Radium Palace Hotel offered treatments using water pumped directly from the mines. Elsewhere in the city, you could buy radium soaps, radium cigars and radium pastries. Other towns across Europe soon followed suit. In Bath, for example, you could drink radioactive water, find radium bread in a bakery and bring home bottled mineral waters.

Radium therapy was hailed as a medical wonder. Scientists experimented on themselves, demonstrating that “if radium could burn or kill skin it could destroy tumours”. Burns from radium healed quickly. It made operations superfluous, eliminated tumours, solved all sorts of dermatological problems, could cure blindness, impotence, arthritis, depression, insanity. A wife-beater was said to have been cured of both cancer and violence. In 1896, some breast cancer patients were being offered a course of 18 x-ray treatments. Unfortunately, neither the doctors nor their patients knew about the long-term damage of repeated or prolonged exposure to radium.

After a series of scandals, a steady stream of dying radiologists, a couple of atomic bombs and efforts by medical associations to warn against quack treatments, radioactivity started becoming a subject of community alarm. It was not immediate in the US which remained enamoured with all things atomic for a while after WWII but science fiction books started featuring irradiated monsters, Hollywood movies began to reflect on the destructive side of the substance, companies closed, fashion changed, medical thought moved on and by the end of 1940s, radioactivity became associated with toxicity.

Half Lives is both joyful and harrowing. Throughout its pages, Lucy Jane Santos gives life to a rich material panorama made of adverts, objects, miracle cures and the interplay between scientific discoveries and popular culture.

In the epilogue, the author explains the many ways that radium is still haunting us. Buildings and production sites associated with radioactive elements are still in use. Their occupants often unaware of the prior use of the edifices. In 2010, The Guardian revealed that portions of the 2012 Olympic park in London built on land used to be occupied by companies producing glow-in-the-dark paint for watches and clocks during WWII.

And low-level radiation still has supporters who believe in its health benefits. Jáchymov, for example, continues to offer radon cures. Elderly people still bathe in the spa waters at Schlema, which contain low levels of radon, convinced that it can cure their rheumatisms. And if you’re not inclined to travel, then you can buy a small bottle of a Radium Bromatum homoeopathic remedy.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that pretty much everything and everyone is naturally radioactive.

Half Lives is an interesting, pacy social history about the discovery, uses and marketing of the radioactive element radium. I was fascinated to read about the changes in attitude to the element, from a wonder drug of “bottled sunshine” to be applied in and on to the body in all ways, to a dangerous destructive force to be treated with extreme caution.

I particularly enjoyed the early years where radium was so expensive that having some in your product was a mark of exclusivity and wealth display. People were concerned that the product might not contain as much radium as promised, rather than being worried about the danger of exposing themselves to radiation damage.

A well researched and engaging social history book - a glowing recommendation here!

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Radioactivity is good for you. That’s what many people believed, back when exciting glow-in-the-dark elements captured the public attention and cathode rays were all the rage. Half Lives is a history of one element in particular, radium, discovered and isolated by the Curies and which was popularly used in medicine, therapy, beauty treatments and other applications a hundred years ago.

The book explores the history of radium and related issues such as ‘quack medicine,’ the British spa towns, uranium mining and the scientists who became martyrs to their investigations before the deadly effects of radiation were known. The science is presented in an easily understood way, while the writing style is readable with a sense of humour. The content wasn’t always very interesting to me but if I’d been researching the history of radium (until the 1950s or so) and wanted some details to use, then this book would be perfect.

Footnotes and references are included. There is also an image section with some fascinating examples of radium-inspired products and photos of the Curies.

Thank you to Icon Books via NetGalley. Half Lives will be published on 2nd July.

NB. This review will be published on my blog on 29th June.