Læknablaðið - 01.10.1968, Page 51

LÆKNABLAÐIÐ
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In general, man is so well adapted to liis habitats, varied as
they may be, that only when he drastically alters his radiation
environment or ventures as do the astronauts into outer space
does he have a chance to encounter serious problems related
to radiation.
One of the earliest recognized of industrial health problems
was the chronic sickness in the miners at Schneeherg and
Joachimsthal where, for many eenturies, many of the miners
had died with illness involving the lungs. Through the Work of
Koelsch,3 Sikl4 and otliers in Czechoslovakia this was recognized
to be lung cancer, caused by inhalation in the air of tlie mines of
excessive concentrations of radon, a radioactive gas derived from
radium present in the rock.
More recently the researches of Rutherford, Rohr, Lawrence.
Strassmann, Fermi and their colleagues have placed limitless
amounts of radioactive material at man’s command through
atomic fission. The laborious efforts ol' 50 years had produced
ahout two kilos of radium, and many scientific pioneers died as
Fig. 1.
Radiation dermatitis and fatal epidermoid carcinoma of the skin in
a radiologist whose hand had received repeated exposure to X-rays
aggregating several thousand R.