Iodine Mössbauer spectroscopy. The other iodine radioisotopes have much shorter half-lives, no longer than days. Some of them have medical applications involving the thyroid gland, where the iodine that enters the body is stored and concentrated. Iodine-123 has a half-life of thirteen hours and decays by electron capture to tellurium-123, emitting gamma radiation; it is used in nuclear medicine imaging, including single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and X-ray computed tomography (X-Ray CT) scans. Iodine-125 has a half-life of fifty-nine days, decaying by electron capture to tellurium-125 and emitting low-energy gamma radiation; the second-longest-lived iodine radioisotope, it has uses in biological
Tincture of iodine Tincture of iodine Tincture of iodine, iodine tincture, or weak iodine solution is an antiseptic. It is usually 2–7% elemental iodine, along with potassium iodide or sodium iodide, dissolved in a mixture of ethanol and water. Tincture solutions are characterized by the presence of alcohol. It was used from 1908 in pre-operative skin preparation by surgeon Antonio Grossich. In the United Kingdom the development of an iodine solution for skin sterilisation was pioneered by Lionel Stretton. The "British Medical Journal" published the detail of his work at Kidderminster Infirmary in 1909. Stretton used a much weaker solution than that used