Word: thallium
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...have been three outstanding cosmetic procedures that have been dangerous to the general public: Removal of superfluous hair by X-ray which has resulted in scars and cancer; the use of certain dyes on the eyelashes and eye-brows which has caused blindness and death; and the use of thallium acetate in creams to remove superfluous hairs which has caused serious illness and death...
...barley which Cesario Delgado foraged at Porterville was rat & squirrel bait. It had been poisoned with thallium chloride. Thallium is one of the rare metals. It stands in the periodic system of the elements between mercury and lead. Close neighbors are gold, platinum and bismuth. Nearby is radium. Thallium is deadly poison itself, poisons every compound it goes into. None of them can be discerned by taste, smell or feel...
...thallium's peculiar properties is that it causes hair to fall out. Foolish women and masquerading criminals use it as a depilatory. For a while some orphan asylums used thallium pastes and pills to bare the heads of children infected with ringworm of the scalp...
There is no specific cure for thallium poisoning. But J. C. Munch of Glen Olden, Pa., who last year made a report on the "Pharmacology of Thallium and Its Use in Rodent Control" for the U. S. Department of Agriculture, found pilocarpine helpful. Philocarpine, an active poison from the tropical American jaborandi shrub, stimulates many of the physiological activities which thallium destroys. It causes saliva and urine to flow, hair to grow. Mr. Munch telegraphed instructions to California on how to use the drug, took a plane to administer it himself...