I Gave My Tooth for Science
date: label: associated dates
content: 1991 09 25
notes: label: Description
content: As ever more people worried about the harmful effects of nuclear testing, Herman M. Kalckar, a Danish biochemist who settled in the U.S., suggested that the concentration of radioisotopes in baby teeth might provide information about the absorption of radioactive elements by the body. Barry Commoner, a professor of plant physiology at Washington University in St Louis, organized the “Baby Tooth Survey” to promote medical research into radiation hazards and the test ban cause. Buttons of this sort indicated participation in the that Survey,begun in December 1958.
label: Description
content: Ref: “Herman Kalchar, 83, Metabolism Authority,” New York Times (May 22, 1991), p. D25.
label: Description
content: Paul Boyer, Sixty years and counting: Nuclear themes in American culture, 1945 to the present (Manchester, 2016).
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: associated place
content: United States: Missouri, St. Louis
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Dallas E. Nichols, Jr.
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1991.0391.01
label: catalog number
content: 1991.0391.01
label: accession number
content: 1991.0391
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Button
label: Object Name
content: button, dental health
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: white (overall color)
label: Physical Description
content: green (overall color)
label: Measurements
content: average spatial: .5 cm x 2.7 cm; 3/16 in x 1 1/16 in
label: Measurements
content: overall: 1/4 in x 1 in; .635 cm x 2.54 cm