Comment by SiempreViernes

Radiation was treated different back then, look at these choice anecdotes.

> [A patent radioactive medicine]’s most loyal customer was Eben Byers, well known in Pittsburgh society as a wealthy manufacturer, sportsman, and playboy, approaching fifty years of age. Byers continued to take Radithor more desperately each year as his health failed, until in 1931 he entered a hospital, feeble and emaciated, his very breath radioactive. He did not have time to develop cancer but died of direct radiation injury within a few months.

> This was the first proven case of death from a patent radioactive medicine ... The public was not easily convinced that radioactivity could be dangerous at all [...] Doctors of sound reputation continued to use heavy doses of radiation to treat not only serious ailments but also cosmetic problems like warts or excess facial hair. Some even offered men temporary birth control through X-ray sterilization. As late as 1940 many hospital and laboratory workers were casually exposing themselves to radiation at levels far above the official guidelines.

[...]

> During the 1950s X-rays were often used to kill unwanted body hair, thousands of fluoroscopes in shoe Stores across the United States and Europe showed people the bones in their children’s feet; some hospitals routinely X-rayed infants simply to please parents with an inside view of their offspring.

From "Nuclear Fear; a history of images"