This became known as a common symptom, dubbed “radium jaw.” Maggia died in 1922, followed by many women, total numbers of which remain unconfirmed. While inspecting her mouth, the dentist touched her jaw and accidentally broke it. She had started feeling a toothache-like pain and had a tooth pulled, but the pain worsened and spread to her jaw and around her ears. Dentists were the first to notice the damage as they inspected the dial painters’ mouths.Ī girl named Mollie Maggia worked as a dial painter for the USRC factory in New Jersey. The effects of radium poisoning became apparent around the 1920’s. As they worked, some girls would also goof around and paint their teeth, nails, dresses and faces so they would glow in the dark. The women were assured the job was harmless, and dial painters made twenty dollars a week - at the time, one of the best paying jobs for young women. They were instructed to do this because it created a finer point, making it easier to get clean and precise lines while painting.īut each time the women did this, they ingested a small amount of radium that, over time, became incredibly dangerous. ” They would press the very tip of the paintbrush between their lips between each stroke before going in for more paint. The women used a precision technique described as “ lip pointing. Hundreds of women were hired to paint these watches, which would then glow in the dark. This radium-infused paint was distributed to different factories that produced watch supplies, with the largest located in New Jersey. Radium Corporation (USRC) distributed a radium substance that was used to create paints. In addition to medical treatment, it became popular in the watch dial industry, proving especially helpful to military soldiers during World War I. They had more to learn, however.ĭue to its glow-in-the-dark effet, radium was mesmerizing to the public. Some even considered it a kind of miracle. Because of its healing properties, most people concluded that it was a fully safe tool. But in the early 1900’s, it was the prime ingredient in many common manufactured goods and was mass produced in factories, mostly by women.ĭiscovered in 1898, radium was soon found to be successful in the reduction of tumor growth. Radium is something we probably do not think much about in today’s world. Remember, you can keep track of all of the previous entries in this series on the site here, or on the Royal Society of Chemistry’s dedicated page. Today, the element has few practical uses, and is mainly used as a radiation source for medical applications. Once the dangers of radiation were more widely appreciated, use of radium in consumer products ceased. These women suffered from the horrendous effects of radium poisoning as a result of their work and had to fight long legal battles for the companies that employed them to admit responsibility. The case of the radium girls, the women who were tasked with painting watch dials with luminous radium paint, is well-documented. Some of these products posed clear risks to the public, while others endangered those who produced them. Glow-in-the-dark watch dials used radium paint, and it was also used for supposed health benefits in products including toothpaste and even chocolate. Consequently, it was used in a number of applications in consumer products. Radium was discovered at a time when the dangers of radioactivity were not known. The curie, a historical unit of radioactivity, is based on the radioactivity of one of radium’s isotopes, Ra-226. It’s a highly radioactive metal which occurs naturally as a consequence of the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium. Radium was one of the elements discovered by Marie Curie along with her husband, Pierre.
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