X-ray film

Our Archives Service is in the process of acquiring a large hospital
archive, and the archivist involved has mentioned to me that the
hospital's x-ray store has a very strong and disagreeable odour. I'm
not familiar with x-ray film or how it is processed, and I can't
easily get out to examine this lot myself. The x-rays may date from
the 1940s onward. Does anyone know if this smell is more likely to
be due to a) nitrate or acetate degradation; b) some other
specialized film base, with which I'm not familiar; c) poor
processing; d) non-silver image components; or e) a combination?
With thanks,

Debby Rohan


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:26
                Distributed: Tuesday, September 2, 2003
                       Message Id: cdl-17-26-015
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