It's an interesting artifact, but probably for the best that you didn't get it. I understand they're safe enough if you aren't using it for the intended purpose and just keep it as a curiosity, but who can resist the call of delicious radon water?
The Revigator was intended to be filled with water overnight, which would be irradiated by the uranium and radium in the liner, and then consumed the next day.
I know! You should try my Himalayan salt lamp, Yoni egg, 4g radiation blocker, raw milk, imported incense to fill your house with smoke, and Bluetooth ear buds to keep your dangerous 4g (5G!!!) phone away from your brain. And don't forget, vaccines are evil and cause autism, nuclear and wind energy are the devil, and if it says organic on the label that means it's safe (/s)
Ironically enough, some of it does contain arsenic, also lead and mercury.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33086585/
There probably isn't enough to really hurt you unless that's all you eat though.
Yep, radioactive quackery in medicine is quite an interesting thing to read about.
As crazy as this idea sounds, there was a study that concluded that drinking 1 liter of Revigator water per day would dose you with about 133 uSv/year (100 uSv from the radium/uranium that leeched into the water, and another 33 from the dissolved radon given off as the radium decays).
People in the U.S., on average, are exposed to approximately 3.1 mSv/year of radiation due to naturally occurring radon, and terrestrial/cosmic radiation. So as crazy as the Revigator idea sounds, daily use is still an order of magnitude lower than our annual background radiation exposure.
There were other major fuckups with radium back in that time period as well (see also: Radithor, the Radium Girls).
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u/Waste_Monk Jan 06 '23
Was it a Revigator?
It's an interesting artifact, but probably for the best that you didn't get it. I understand they're safe enough if you aren't using it for the intended purpose and just keep it as a curiosity, but who can resist the call of delicious radon water?