The Top 5 Chemistry Lab Injuries/deaths of All Time!
OK, not the most normal of all the Chemistry related topics I usually post on. But it was brought to my attention whilst watching a documentary a few days ago about reaching ‘Absolute Zero’, that compared to other scientists, Chemists usually get it bad in the whole injuries/deaths thing. It’s very unusual that a Chemist will be shot or have something kill them instantaneously; they usually suffer long and painful deaths…
Number 5
Elizabeth Ascheim
Killed by X-Rays
Elizabeth Fleischman Ascheims husband, a Dr Woolf was very interested in the new discovery of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen - x-rays. His new wife became equally interested and she gave up her job as a bookkeeper to undertake studies in electrical science. Eventually she bought an x-ray machine which she moved in to her husbands office - this was the first x-ray lab in San Francisco. She and her husband spent some years experimenting with the machine - using themselves as subjects. Unfortunately they did not realize the consequences of their lack of protection and Elizabeth died of an extremely widespread and violent cancer.
Number 4
Sir Humphrey Davy
A catalog of disasters
Sir Humphrey Davy, an amazing British chemist, got a very bumpy start to his science career. As a young apprentice he was fired from his job at an apothecary because he caused too many explosions! And unsurprisingly when he eventually took up the field of chemistry, he had a habit of inhaling the various gasses he was dealing with. Fortunately this bad habit led to his discovery of the anesthetic properties of nitrous oxide. But, unfortunately for him at least, this same habit led to him nearly killing himself on many occasions. The frequent poisonings left him an invalid for the remaining two decades of his life. During this time he also permanently damaged his eyes in a nitrogen trichloride explosion.
Number 3
Michael Faraday
Suffered chronic poisoning
This guy worked for Sir Humphrey Davy’s and seemed to have taken on some of his mental chemical lab practices. Due injury to Sir Humphrey Davy’s eyes, Faraday became an apprentice to him. He went on to improve on Davy’s methods of electrolysis and to make important discoveries in the field of electro-magnetics. Unfortunately Faraday also suffered damage to his eyes in a nitrogen chloride explosion. He spent the remainder of his life suffering chronic chemical poisoning.
Number 2
Marie Curie
Died of radiation exposure
In 1898, Curie working with her husband Pierre, discovered radium. ‘Awesome!’ she must have thought as she spent the remainder of her life performing radiation research and studying radiation therapy. Unfortunately her constant exposure to radiation led to her contracting leukaemia and she died in 1934. Although I must also add Curie is the first and only person to receive two Nobel prizes in science in two different fields: chemistry and physics. Which even I must admit is pretty impressive, worth losing your life over though?
NUMBER 1
Louis Slotin
Killed himself with an accidental fission reaction
As part of the mysterious Manhattan Project, (The US first nuke building project) this genius managed to drop a sphere of beryllium on to a second sphere obviously causing a critical reaction. The other scientists in the room witnessed a “blue glow†of air ionization and felt a “heat waveâ€. Slotin rushed outside and was ill in some bushes then was rushed to hospital and died nine days later. The amount of radiation he was exposed to was equivalent to standing 4800 feet away from an atomic bomb explosion, so fair play to the fella he did get it bad.
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