“In the early 1900s, radium was more valuable than gold and platinum. As such, the term “Radium” was incorporated into the brand names of any number of products even when these products didn’t actually contain radium. The same was true for the term “X-Ray.”"
- Health Physics Instrumentation Collection
This reminds me of the type of thing you would see in Fallout
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there WERE patent medicines/snake oil that really contained radium (!) that greatly accelerated the user’s expire date!
So, it wasn’t just a catchy advertising word, it was an insane ingredient!
@Mike
How about this:
http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/arium.html
I still worry that I used to get my feet X-rayed as a kid whenever we bought new Clarks shoes. Does anyone else remember those machines in shoe-shops?
There was also Radium Beer, brewed in Terre Haute Indiana c. 1930.
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/brandnames/beer.htm