Radium Jaw: A Dark Story Of Watch Paint
The early 20th century was a wild time for medicine and experimentation. There was an especially dangerous craze for radium.
Pierre and Marie Curie discovered radium in 1898. It had the dazzling ability to glow in the dark. Initially, it was used in everything - food, water, toys, toothpaste, and cosmetics.
Most notoriously, it was prescribed as a cure-all medicine and used to paint glow-in-the-dark dials on watches.
Photo credit: Wikimedia
What is Radium Jaw?
Radium jaw, also known as radium necrosis, was caused by the ingestion/ absorption of radium paint. This was the case for many factory workers and people who were prescribed radium-laden medication. Radium medicine was marketed as a ‘cure for the living dead.’
The first written account of the radium jaw is from a dentist in 1924. Dr. Theodor Blum described the case of a radium dial painter who showed unusual mandibular osteomyelitis - inflammation in the bone that develops after a chronic infection.
Later that year, pathologist Dr. H.S. Martland determined the condition to be symptomatic of radium paint ingestion. Many young women working for various radium paint companies reported mandibular pain and dental problems.
Is it Curable?
The human body mistakes radium for calcium, so the body doesn’t flush it out. Instead, it absorbs the radioactive element into the bones. Once in the bones, radium kills some cells and scrambles the DNA of others, causing problems like skin cancer.
There was and is no cure for radiation exposure. Proper safety protocols are the only way to protect from radiation.
Work and Medical Hazards of Yester Year
The United States was one of the most dangerous places to work in the first half of the 20th century. There were minimal government regulations. Labor unions didn’t exist, or if they did, they didn't have any significant power.
In addition, compensation for work-related injuries and deaths was something employers volunteered to do if they felt like it.
Radium paint was a radioactive element that caused cancer and systematically destroyed the bodies of the people that worked with it.
Who Were The Radium Girls?
Between 1917 and 1928, the most prominent use for radium was painting watch dials. It gave watches and clocks a glow-in-the-dark look patented ‘Undark.’ This was patented by the Radium Luminous Material Corporation, later called the United States Radium Corporation.
Other radium corporations included the Radium Dial Corporation and the Waterbury Clock Company.
Below, a photo is shown of an advertisement for ‘Undark.’
Photo credit: Wikimedia
Young women were the best people for the job of painting dials. This was because women were perceived to have small, dainty hands suited to delicate work.
Most of the women hired to paint the radium clock dials were no more than girls. None were older than 15, and most were working-class or the daughters of immigrant families.
The radium girls were taught to ‘point’ their brushes by compressing the brush heads between their lips. They did this to make the brush tip as small as possible for the painting.
Not long after the radium craze started, dentists began seeing young women with severe dental problems.
Often, teeth needed to be pulled out to relieve pain. However, parts of the patients’ jaw bones would come out with the teeth.
One of the radium girls, Mollie Maggia, was affected badly. Her entire jaw disintegrated under her dentist’s gentle hands. She passed away at the age of 24 after drowning in her own blood after tumors attacked her jugular vein.
Radium workers experienced horrible problems. Ulcers developed on their skin, and their bones became brittle - tumors developed in their legs, hips, and faces. Many of them suffered from anemia, sterility, and, horrifyingly - bones that glowed in the dark.
Many female workers started dying in 1923. By 1924, 50 factory workers were ill, and dozens had died. The radium companies, under fire from the factory workers, urged doctors to claim syphilis was the cause of death. This was done in a smear campaign against the women's reputations.
Grace Fryer, Katherine Schaub, Edna Hussman, Albina Larice, and Quinta McDonald sued United States Radium Corporation. This historical case changed the labor rights movement and established occupational disease labor laws. They were dubbed the radium girls by the media. Tragically, most of the women died before they could reach the age of 30.
Who Was Eben Byers?
Eben Byers was born in 1880 to a well-off family. He was afforded an excellent education and went on to become an American golfer and industrialist. He injured his arm during a match in 1927, which led him to experience a low thrum of constant pain.
His doctor prescribed Radithor, a hypothetical cure-all. He only took a spoon full a day until he hit a plateau. He upgraded to one bottle a day, then two bottles a day. A year later, he was consuming three bottles of Radithor a day.
In 1931, Eben Byer’s lower jaw fell off. His tissue and bones had disintegrated from the radioactive water. From 1927 to 1931, he took an estimated 1,400 bottles of Radithor. Surgeons tried to reconstruct a semblance of a jaw, but it was too late. His whole body had suffered from the radiation exposure. His vital organs disintegrated. In 1932, at 52 years old, Eben Byers passed away.
Photo credit: Wikimedia
Conclusion
Radioactive exposure was common in the early 1900s. The most notable cases of radium jaw are Eben Byers and the radium girls.
Unfortunately, there is no way to be sure how many lives were affected by radium jaw. Many female workers who handled radium paint died before it was clear what was happening or before any trials were won against the United States Radium Corporation.
The impact of radium becomes especially broad when we account for the use of radium in cosmetics. This is because people would have applied it on or near the eyes and mouth, where it would have been easily absorbed.
What is clear is the impact these cases had on labor laws and the mistreatment of workers by big corporations. If only this impact had come about without such tragedy.
Not all the stories we share on Phreeque are so tragic - keep reading to learn about remarkable people, animals, science, and history.