Polonium subjects were chosen because experimenters wanted persons who had not been exposed to polonium either through work or accident. All subjects had incurable diseases. Excretion of polonium was followed, and an autopsy was conducted at that time on the deceased patient to determine which organs absorbed the polonium. Patients' ages ranged from 'early thirties' to 'early forties'. The experiments were described in Chapter 3 of Biological Studies with Polonium, Radium, and Plutonium, National Nuclear Energy Series, Volume VI-3, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1950. Not specified is the isotope under study, but at the time polonium-210 was the most readily available polonium
Polonium hydride and hydrogen selenide, and decomposes into its constituent elements, releasing heat in the process. The amount of heat given off in the decomposition of polonium hydride is over 100 kJ/mol, the largest of all the hydrogen chalcogenides. Polonium hydride is a liquid due to van der Waals forces, and not due to the same reason as why water (hydrogen oxide) is liquid (hydrogen bonding). It is predicted that, like the other hydrogen chalcogenides, polonium may form two types of salts: polonide (containing the Po anion) and one from polonium hydride (containing –PoH, which would be the polonium analogue of thiol,