atomic cocktail

English

Alternative forms

• atom cocktail

Pronunciation

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Noun

atomic cocktail (plural atomic cocktails)

1. (idiomatic, medicine) A drinkable liquid containing a radioactive substance, used in health care either as a diagnostic aid or as a treatment, especially for cancer of the thyroid.
   • 1954 March 22, “Medicine: Atomic Diagnosis”, in Time, retrieved 19 March 2014:

     For most patients, the old-fashioned basal metabolism test is a mild form of torture . . . and four Navy researchers have come to the conclusion that in big medical centers with facilities for handling radioisotopes it should be replaced by the "atomic cocktail."

   • 1998, Jerome Klinkowitz, Vonnegut in Fact: The Public Spokesmanship of Personal Fiction, →ISBN, page 73:

     Lilienthal's speech to the scientists at G.E. revelled in possibilities for atomic measurement and medicine, especially how a man dying of a huge throat tumor was treated with an atomic cocktail, causing the tumor to disappear completely in a matter of days.

   • 2007, Ira Edwards, Honest Nutrition, →ISBN, page 130:

     The test showed excessive hormone, so the doctor prescribed an “atomic cocktail,” a radioactive iodine mixture designed to partially kill the thyroid gland.

   • 2010, R Alan Smith, Our Eyes Are on You, →ISBN, page 148:

     I was at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles for a radioactive iodine scan, this one at diagnostic levels—less radiation than the therapeutic levels I would eventually endure. I drank my first atomic cocktail: a vial of liquid radioactive iodine diluted in what seemed like gallons of water.

2. A mixed alcoholic beverage, created in Las Vegas, United States, in the mid-20th century.
   • 2001 April 15, James McManus, "Profiles in Corruption" (book review of The Money and the Power by Sally Denton and Roger Morris), New York Times (retrieved 19 March 2014):

     Its most famous drink is the atomic cocktail—vodka, brandy, Champagne, splash of sherry.

References

• “atomic cocktail”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.