Talk:Radioactive quackery

message: In his book The Elements, Theodore Gray mentions several radium-branded items that contained no radium whatsoever. Also, radium condoms. Anywhere else about these? 165.91.12.190 (talk) 05:14, 6 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Radium shoe polish

message: According to article Ferrouranium, it had some moderately desirable qualities, and was somewhat commercially successful on that basis for a number of years... AnonMoos (talk) 02:45, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: After considering this comment, I decided to remove the advert that I had added in this article. Since it's non-medical, and there's a tiny grain of truth behind the wild exaggeration, it's not the greatest example to put in this article, although there's still clearly an element of snake oil in the advert—a very non-/pseudo-scientific sense of "ooh, uranium is magic" that was an echo of the cultural moment of radiographic medical quackery—and there's no way that this brand of HSS was 20% to 50% better than most other brands, because it would have swept the field if those numbers were true, in the way that HSS swept away half the usage of older tool steels, and carbides swept away half the usage of HSS. I may delete the advert from the ferrouranium article only because its snake-oil tone and 20-50% claim makes it a poor example of HSS being .05-5% better when some ferrouranium is added (as the article states). Will think about it ... — ¾-10 21:55, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: HSS advert

message: In L. Frank Baum's book The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913) appears the following passage:
:  Here was nothing grimy or faded, indeed. On the contrary, the room was of dazzling brilliance and beauty, for it was lined throughout with an exquisite metal that resembled translucent frosted silver. The surface of this metal was highly ornamented in raised designs representing men, animals, flowers and trees, and from the metal itself was radiated the soft light which flooded the room. All the furniture was made of the same glorious metal, and Scraps asked what it was.
: "That's radium," answered the Chief. "We Horners spend all our time digging radium from the mines under this mountain, and we use it to decorate our homes and make them pretty and cosy. It is a medicine, too, and no one can ever be sick who lives near radium."
Worth mentioning?  —Mark Dominus (talk) 03:12, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a primary source, so I'd say it doesn't warrant mentioning in the main topic. Perhaps a sub topic of "References in pop culture" or something to that effect would be a fine place to put it. Mgiulietti (talk) 20:17, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Patchwork Girl of Oz 

message: This probably needs a new title, but I can't think of any better options right now.  Also, the lead sentence needs to be re-written per WP:REFER, but that will be much easier to do when a better title is in place.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: What about "Harmful uses of radiation therapy in the 20th century". Not great, but (IMO) better than using the word "quackery".98.243.94.83 (talk) 20:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's nothing wrong with using the word quackery in a page title. Quackery is quackery—that's the word for the concept. The problem with the title right now is not that it includes that word, but rather that the adjective radioactive usually means "emitting radiation" (as opposed to "related to radioactivity"). Quackery is not a physical object that can emit radiation; it is a behavior or practice. One new title that solves the problem is "Radiotherapeutic quackery", because radiotherapeutic in that instance means "of or relating to radiotherapy". — ¾-10 17:24, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article title 

message: This makes the quackery angle more vivid through exaggerated advertising language, and is likely to provoke a visceral reaction among those who know of Marie Curie's death, or the deaths of the radium watch-dial painters... AnonMoos (talk) 16:37, 17 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Another image which could be added