The weird history of our dangerous relationship with uranium
Excerpted from Chain Reaction: The Hopeful History of Uranium by Lucy Jane Santos with permission from Pegasus Books. November 2024.
In the US in the late 1880s, La Belle Glass Company developed what became known as Ivory or Custard glass by increasing the concentration of uranium oxide, which made the effect more opaque. Heat-sensitive chemicals, such as gold, were added to the mix, which, when reheated during the manufacturing process, resulted in a shading effect that ranged from clear yellow to milky white at the edges. Meanwhile, Burmese glass was developed by the Mount Washington Glass company. The recipe included white sand, lead oxide, purified potash, niter, bicarbonate of soda, fluorspar, feldspar, uranium oxide and colloidal gold. This formula produced an opaque glass that came in different shades, from pink to yellow. It is thought that its name was bestowed after Queen Victoria remarked that it reminded her of a Burmese sunset.
And while there were many different shades, it was the yellowish-green effect that became the most popular choice among buyers. Much later it became popularly known as Vaseline glass, due to its supposed resemblance to the famous brand of petroleum jelly. There were also plenty of other companies who were using uranium to colour their glass at this time. The various producers were vying with each other to produce new colours, effects and transitions among an atmosphere of commercial secrecy.
However, one of the strangest uses for this colouring was noted in 1847, when Scientific American reported that uranium, along with platina, titanium and cobalt, had a secondary application as a colouring agent for artificial teeth made from feldspar and quartz. By incorporating uranium as a final step in the glass-making process, just before being fired, the teeth were given an orange-yellow hue. While it sounds a bit strange that this was the desired effect, throughout history dentures and false teeth had been made with ivory, gold, silver, mother of pearl or enamelled copper. It was only later in the nineteenth century, mainly with the introduction of porcelain teeth, that looking natural or realistic was a desirable quality in artificial teeth. And, even then, the technology wasn’t quite up to scratch. Artificial teeth looked unnatural, and it was only due to a robust social contract of pretence that allowed the wearer to remain in blissful ignorance about their appearance.
Uranium oxide, along with the salts of other metallic substances, was also considered a potentially important weapon against disease and illness. This theory had a long history, dating back to the time of Paracelsus, who used toxic minerals and metals in his treatments. Considered the founder of the discipline of toxicology, Paracelsus challenged the then dominant Galenic ideas of medicine, which argued that good health was derived from a balance of the four humours - blood, phlegm, yellow and black bile. If your humours were unbalanced then disease was the likely result. The treatment for such imbalances included the therapeutic methods of bloodletting, purgatives and emetics. By contrast, by the sixteenth century, for Paracelsus and those who agreed with him, a poison in the body was best cured by a similar poison. In his mind, the therapeutic use of toxic substances could be beneficially wielded - as long as the physician was in control. After all, he asked: ‘What is there that is not a poison? All things are poison, and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.’ The principle that this established was that everything could be toxic if taken in large enough quantities. Therefore it was entirely possible to control the dosage and prevent harmful effects.
With this theory in mind, Christian Gmelin, a professor at the University of Tübingen, Germany, further investigated the toxicology of uranium. This research was part of a chemistry treatise, published in 1824, that described the physiological effects, on both humans and animals, of the salts of eighteen different metals, including uranium.
Gmelin’s Handbuch der Chemie described the experimentation process using uranium salts, which had been obtained from pitchblende. Gmelin fed the uranium salts to dogs and rabbits in different ways and dosages to study its effects in a controlled environment. Two dogs were given their doses with food, while another dog and a rabbit received larger doses through stomach tubes. Additionally, two further dogs were even given higher doses through intravenous injection. By using these various methods, Gmelin was able to draw a conclusion about the toxicity of uranium.
He determined that while uranium was a ‘feeble poison’ when consumed, when administered through intravenous injection the substance proved swiftly fatal.
Another researcher, C. Le Conte, carried out more experiments, this time using uranium nitrate, a yellowish crystalline substance that dissolves easily in water and is made by reacting uranium oxide with nitric acid. In 1853, Le Conte reported to the Parisian Society of Biology that he had induced nephritis, a kidney disease, by giving dogs small doses of the chemical compound.
With several researchers reporting that they were able to use uranium to induce particular symptoms, the idea developed that it would also be useful to treat illnesses that presented the same side effects. Nephritis, for example, is a serious complication of diabetes mellitus, and Le Conte had noted that he observed ‘sugar in the urine of dogs slowly poisoned by small doses of nitrate of uranium’. From studies like this developed the hope that uranium could be used to treat the disease.
One of the first known descriptions of diabetes was back in the second century, when the Greek physician Aretaeus characterised it as ‘a puzzling disease’. There had been little advancement in understanding in the intervening years and it remained untreatable, with distressing side effects and the inevitability of the death of the patient. Medical advice was limited to bed rest and a strict diet which, by the nineteenth century, included commercial products like Bonthron’s Diabetic Biscuits and Bread, and The G.B. Diabetes Whisky, which promised a ‘sample on application’.
Samuel West, a physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, gave a boost to the potential of a uranium treatment for diabetes, publishing the results of his clinical experiments using uranium in the British Medical Journal in 1895 and 1896. West had given eight patients a treatment schedule of uranium salts dissolved in water, which was to be drunk after meals. He started them off with a mere one or two grains of salts and then increased slowly until they were consuming up to twenty grains two or three times a day. There were often dramatic effects reported, with glycosuria - glucose in the urine - practically dis- appearing, and many of the patients showing improvements in their symptoms. However, there were some patients in the trial that documented West’s gastrointestinal problems, and when treatment was discontinued for all, the effects of the disease returned practically immediately.
While the results of these tests were inconclusive, uranium treatments continued to be used in medicine and for a wide variety of ailments. According to a Dr Cook from Buffalo, uranium was great for treating urinary incontinence. An unnamed doctor claimed he had used it to cure a stomach ulcer in 1880. One reported its success in haemorrhage control while another for the treatment of consumptives. The pharmaceutical periodical Chemist and Druggist carried a recipe for a snuff, a kind of smokeless tobacco, containing one grain of uranium acetate and coffee, which was ‘the latest cure for cold in the head’.
A more conventional form of medication was produced by the pharmaceutical company Burroughs and Wellcome, in the form of tabloids of uranium nitrate. Or Oppenheimer, Sons & Co of London who sold palatinoids containing two and a half grains of uranium nitrate. These palatinoids were marketed as combining the benefits of uranium, which ‘has been recently recommended in the treatment of diabetes by Dr S West’ with- out the ‘repugnant flavour’ of his treatment. Their tablets could be swallowed whole or crushed into a handkerchief and inhaled.
And if you think all of that is pretty strange then step into the fascinating world of medicated wine and discover Vin Urané Pesqui! Each 24-fluid-ounce bottle of this uranium wine came with a book called Diabetes and Its Cure by Vin Urané Pesqui.
The book described the beverage as a powerful elixir that could instantly quench thirst, restore strength and improve bodily functions. Breathing difficulties, fatigue and lassitude were also said to be alleviated. It was even claimed that patients who drank Vin Urané Pesqui experienced a significant improvement in their appearance and temperament.
The dosage - which was outlined on the label - was suggested as: ‘Three small sherry-glassfuls per day, with or without water, 5 minutes before, or immediately after meals, and at night before bed time.’
About the author: Lucy Jane Santos, author of Half Lives: The Unlikely History of Radium, is an expert in the history of twentieth century with a particular interest in the cultural history of radioactivity. She is now the Executive Secretary of the British Society for the History of Science. Lucy lives in England
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