While thumbing through my collection of vintage magazines, I nearly fell off my stool when I spied this ad in an August 1929 issue of Hearth and Home.
The curative powers of radium??!! Isn’t that radioactive? Poisonous? I checked my dictionary to make sure … yep, “a highly radioactive metallic element whose decay yields radon gas and alpha rays.” But it looks like, in 1929, folks weren’t worried about a bit of radioactivity. Hey, it was apparently the cure for whatever ailed you with its “wonderful curative powers.” Ah, self-health radiation treatment. Here’s an excerpt from the text:
“The wonderful curative power of Radium has been known for years. However, the benefits of this precious, health-giving substance have in the past been only within the means of persons of wealth. Since the invention of Degnen’s Radio-Active Solar Pad, any man or woman, poor or rich, can afford this treatment which offers so much relief from suffering and disease.
Degnen’s Radio-Active Solar Pad is worn next to the body day and night. It pours a constant stream of radio-active energy into the system while you work, play or sleep, helping to build up weakened nerves and tissues to a strong, healthy condition. It creates a vigorous circulation of blood, thus removing congestion, which is the real cause of most diseases.”
The ad goes on to say that they’ll send you the “appliance” for free with the understanding that they won’t charge a cent is it “fails to give satisfactory results.” The “appliance” was apparently a belt with “several coats” of “actual radium.” The effects? I can only guess. “Thousands Have Proven the Marvelous Effects Without Risking a Penny {only their health}.”
I wonder how many unsuspecting women ended up with ovarian cancer or uterine cancer from wearing such a pad on their abdomen? Such dangerous nonsense! This ad reminds me that when we take 21st Century knowledge for granted, and wax eloquently about the virtues of living in a simpler time, we forget that science and medicine was still very limited. We lacked basics like antibiotics and had just gone through a war where countless men were maimed for life or lost because we could do nothing to help them except very basic care. Downton Abby also reminds us of how many lives were lost every year with flu epidemics or maternal toxemia in pregnancy. Instead of wishing to turn back the clock of time, I think I will opt for a B&B experience of “the past” for a get away!
The beauty of it is, we can pick and choose from both worlds. I know I’m leaving corsets on the shelf of history!
I high five that idea!
Well, every generation has its oddities, doesn’t it? All of the litigation ads on TV for the recall of hips and knees reminds me of that one! But I have to confess that this radio-active relief is even weirder than eating arsenic for a nice, smooth white complexion. We’re a weird species, us humans!
This is crazy! I’m posting a link to this on our “Team England” Facebook page because my husband recently had radiation treatments for cancer and this is so nuttily apropos. On our cancer journey update page we even have little video snippets of his state-of-the-art actual treatments for people to see some of what was involved. I posted some thoughts on radiation on Facebook prior to radiation starting because I found the thought of it quite terrifying and I have included a link here;
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10203004027486900&set=o.636800456377385&type=1