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Depleted uranium and radiation-induced lung cancer and leukaemia

41 Ewhurst Avenue, Sanderstead, South Croydon, Surrey CR2 0DH, UK

View larger version (198K): [in a new window]   Figure 1. Woodcut dated 1518 showing a doctor and nurse attending a sick miner in Joachimsthal's hospital. Mining activity can be seen in the background. In the early 1780s the pharmacist Martin Klaproth, who later became Professor of Chemistry at Berlin's Royal Mining Academy, discovered that the black mineral could be used to give glass a brilliant yellow colour and he was also convinced that it contained a new metal. This coincided with the 1781 discovery by William Herschel of a new planet in the solar system, Uranus, and uranium was thus named in honour of the planet by Klaproth. (Courtesy of Dr Fathi Habashi and Dr Adrian Thomas.)

View larger version (142K): [in a new window]   Figure 2. The Schneeberg mines in the ore mountains (Erzgebirge) of Saxony. The photograph was taken circa 1946–47 in the period known as the wild years when the mining techniques were primitive. In German textbooks on the aetiology of lung cancer, as far back as 1879 [21] the term Schneeberg lung cancer is mentioned and the ore Pechblende, dumped in vast quantities on slag heaps as a waste material, obtained its name because of Pech used in the context of "bad luck". (Courtesy of Dr Horst Wesch.)