In addition to being used in nuclear reactors and weapons manufacturing, uranium also has strange applications from dentures to disease treatment.
Uranium produces fluorescence in glassware under ultraviolet light. Image: James L. Amos
In America in the late 1880s, the La Belle glass company developed a glass called Ivory or Custard by increasing the proportion of uranium oxide, which created a more opaque effect. Heat-sensitive chemicals such as gold are added to the mixture, then reheated during the manufacturing process, resulting in a color gradient effect from transparent yellow to milky white at the edges. Although there are many tones, the yellow-green effect has become the most popular choice among buyers. Many other companies also used uranium to color glass during this period. Manufacturers compete with each other to create new colors and gradients.
However, one of the strangest uses of uranium was recorded in 1847, when Scientific American magazine reported that uranium, along with platinum, titanium and cobalt, could be used as a coloring agent for dentures made from jasper and quartz. By adding uranium in the final step of glass production, just before firing, dentures will have a yellow-orange sheen. This is a popular effect even though historically, dentures were often made with ivory, gold, silver, mother of pearl and coated with copper. It was not until the late 19th century that this type of tooth was replaced with the advent of porcelain teeth that look more natural and realistic.
Uranium oxide, along with small amounts of other metallic compounds, is also considered an important medicine. That theory has a long history dating back to Paracelsus, a Swiss-German physician, botanist and alchemist who specialized in using toxic minerals and metals to treat disease. Considered the father of toxicology, Paracelsus believed that good health is the synthesis of four “basic fluids” in the human body including blood, phlegm, tears and bile. If they are out of balance, people will get sick. In the 16th century, Paracelsus believed that the treatment was to treat poison with poison, just need to control the appropriate dosage and prevent harmful effects.
Some researchers say they can use uranium to produce specific symptoms, so it could be useful in treating the disease. For example, nephritis is a serious complication of diabetes, with researcher C. Le Conte observing that “the sugar in dog urine is poisoned by small amounts of uranium nitrate.”
Samuel West, a physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, reinforced the potential use of uranium to treat kidney disease when he published the results of clinical trials with uranium in the British Medical Journal in 1895 and 1896. West said Eight patients drank uranium salt mixed in water after eating. Initially, he gave them 1 – 2 grains of salt, then gradually increased until they consumed 20 grains 2 – 3 times a day. West found that glycosuria, glucose in the urine, disappeared, and many patients experienced improvement in symptoms. However, some patients in the trial experienced gastrointestinal problems. When treatment is stopped, the effects of the disease return immediately.
Although the results of such tests cannot be conclusive, uranium continues to be used in medicine for a wide variety of diseases.