Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Radium bromatum is a single homeopathic remedy. Its Latin name is Radii bromidum, and it is also called Radium bromide. Homeopaths have used it mostly for itchy skin rashes and for aching joints.
The raw source is radium bromide, a salt that is radioactive (it gives off radiation). To make the remedy, that salt is watered down again and again, with shaking at each step. By the time you reach 30C, it is very unlikely that even one atom of the salt is left in the pill.
So what you take is a sugar pill, or a drop of alcohol and water. No human trials of Radium bromatum have been published. Its place comes from homeopathic tradition, and long use is not the same as proof that something works.
There is no known way this remedy could act on the body, because at normal strengths there is nothing of the source left in it.
Homeopathy (a 200-year-old system of very dilute remedies) works from an idea called "like cures like". The idea is that a substance which causes signs in a well person can, once made very dilute, ease those same signs in a sick person. Homeopaths also say the shaking step leaves an imprint in the water.
That imprint has never been shown to exist in any test. Chemists and physicists do not accept it. When people feel better after taking it, the likely reasons are placebo effect, time, and the care and attention of the visit.
Radium bromatum is sold in the usual homeopathic forms:
- Small sugar pills or pellets that melt under the tongue - Liquid drops in alcohol and water - Powders or crushed tablets, mainly for children
Common strengths are 6C, 12C, 30C and 200C. The letter C means the dilution was repeated in steps of one part in a hundred. A higher number means more steps and less chance that any source material is left.
Radium was found in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie. Within a few years, doctors were testing it on skin growths and sore joints.
American homeopaths then gave radium bromide to healthy people and wrote down what they felt. Homeopaths call this a proving, and it is how the remedy got its list of uses. The reported signs included itching, burning skin and night-time joint pain.
The remedy entered homeopathic books in the early 1900s. It is known but not much used. It has no place in herbal medicine, Ayurveda or Chinese medicine.
See a doctor if a rash spreads, blisters, weeps or comes with a fever. Book an urgent visit for any sore that has not healed in three weeks, any mole that changes shape or colour, or any new lump.
Get medical advice for joint pain that lasts more than two weeks, or that comes with swelling, redness, heat or fever. Go to hospital straight away if you have chest pain, trouble breathing, or a sudden swollen and very painful joint.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Radium bromatum is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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