The Fogging of Photographic Film by Radioactive Contaminants in Cardboard Packaging Materials

Abstract

Following the detonation of the experimental atom bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945, a radioactive contaminant was encountered in strawboard material used by the Eastman Kodak Company for packaging photographic sensitive films. This paper board was manufactured in a mill situated at Vincennes, Indiana, on the Wabash River. A run of strawboard, produced on August 6, 1945, showed this new and unusual type of radioactive contaminant. X-ray film packed with this board showed fogged spots after about two weeks' exposure.