If a photographic plate is placed in the vicinity of radium it is almost instantly affected if no screen intercepts the rays; with a screen the action is slower, but it still takes place even through thick folds, therefore, radiographs can be taken and in this way it is being utilized by surgery to view the anatomy, the internal organs, and locate bullets and other foreign substances in the system.
A glass vessel containing radium spontaneously charges itself with electricity. If the glass has a weak spot, a scratch say, an electric spark is produced at that point and the vessel crumbles, just like a Leyden jar when overcharged.
Radium liberates heat spontaneously and continuously. A solid salt of radium develops such an amount of heat that to every single gram there is an emission of one hundred calories per hour, in other words, radium can melt its weight in ice in the time of one hour.
As a result of its emission of heat radium has always a temperature higher by several degrees than its surroundings.
When a solution of a radium salt is placed in a closed vessel the radio-activity in part leaves the solution and distributes itself through the vessel, the sides of which become radio-active and luminous.
Radium acts upon the chemical constituents of glass, porcelain and paper, giving them a violet tinge, changes white phosphorous into yellow, oxygen into ozone and produces many other curious chemical changes.
We have said that it can serve the surgeon in physical examinations of the body after the manner of X-rays. It has not, however, been much employed in this direction owing to its scarcity and prohibitive price. It has given excellent results in the treatment of certain skin diseases, in cancer, etc. However it can have very baneful effects on animal organisms. It has produced paralysis and death in dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, guinea-pigs and other animals, and undoubtedly it might affect human beings in a similar way. Professor Curie said that a single gram of chemically pure radium would be sufficient to destroy the life of every man, woman and child in Paris providing they were separately and properly exposed to its influence.
Radium destroys the germinative power of seeds and retards the growth of certain forms of life, such as larvae, so that they do not pass into the chrysalis and insect stages of development, but remain in the state of larvae.
At a certain distance it causes the hair of mice to fall out, but on the contrary at the same distance it increases the hair or fur on rabbits.
It often produces severe burns on the hands and other portions of the body too long exposed to its activity.