Measures for Progress: A History of the National Bureau of Standards

THE BUREAU IN THE PUBLIC VIEW 301
the Bureau offered the warning that this defiance of the law of conservation
of matter, "would upset the whole structure of physics and chemistry." 6
The Bureau received an average of a letter a month announcing the
discovery of a perpetual motion device, and to the invariable request that it
be tested, the Bureau answered that it would be delighted, upon submission
of a working model. So many letters came asking for devices to locate
buried treasure that the Bureau composed a form letter. was really
"cheaper to dig over the suspected region than to attempt to build such
equipment," said the Bureau.7
Not all was chaff. Publicity given to the beneficial effects of airplane
flights on those hard of hearing or even totally deaf led to many requests for
treatment in the Bureau's high-altitude chamber. The Bureau always agreed
to accept patients with types of deafness that might respond to this treatment,
provided medical supervision was furnished.8 But the medical panacea of
the twenties was radium (it had been electric belts and electric accumulators
bef ore that), and the Bureau was besieged with requests from firms and fac-
tories to verify their radium appliances or certify their radium preparations.
Sent to the Bureau for tests, in order to obtain American Medical Association
approval, were numerous radium injection preparations, "facial radium
applicators," and "radium salves," the latter offered as gangrene and cancer
cures. Devices for inhaling radium emanations, a do.it-yourself "hydro-
radium activator" for making potable radium salts (guaranteed to induce
mental as well as physical stimulation), and "Radithor—the perpetual
sunshine drink" found avid markets well into the 1930's.9
In 1924 the Bureau discontinued its certification of radioactive prep.
arations, but continued to test them at the request of the Post Office, the
Federal Trade Commission, and health authorities. On the basis of their
minute or nonexistent radioactivity, the Bureau reported the patented waters,
muds, slimes, and other concoctions "no more dangerous than a day out in
the sun" and uniformly useless.'° Radium was known to inflict superficial
'Correspondence in NBS Box 14, IPXA; Box 41, ICC; Box 45, lEG. See also NBS
Box 47, AG; Box 83, IC; Box 119, IG; Box 121, IM.
Letter, GKB to Office of Secretary of Commerce, Jan. 18, 1926 (NBS Box 166, IN);
letter, GKB, Dec. 1, 1927 (NBS Box 201, IE).
It may be noted here that by 1923 the Bureau was handling over 244,200 pieces of first-
class mail annually or more than 800 incoming, and outgoing pieces each working day
(NBS Annual Report 1923, pp. 320—321). A count made in 1939, in a 3.day period
chosen at random, showed almost 800 incoming letters requesting technical information,
the same number of telephone calls on technical matters, 450 letters asking for publica.
tions, and 429 visitors who called at the Bureau for scientific or technical information
or help (Hearings * * * 1940, Apr. 21, 1939, p. 154).
Letter, GKB, Feb. 11, 1926 (NBS Box 166, INA).
o Letter, SWS to AMA, May 13, 1922 (NBS Box 14, IPXR).
10 NBS mimographed letter, June 30, 1924 (NBS Box 103, TPX).