Radium jaw

Adult males, 84 days old, given 2-64 Bq 224Ra/mouse, either as single injection, or 8 injections at 3.5-day intervals over 4 weeks observed for 24 months No difference in single or multiple injection effects. No effect at 16 Bq and lower. At 32 and 64 Bq, reduction in bone growth and osteonecrosis of mandible ( radium jaw ) 32... 

At one time, women painted clock and watch dials with luminous radium paint that was a mixture of radium salts and zinc sulfide. They would place the small brushes between their lips and tongue to make the bristles more pointed, in order to paint fine lines with the radium paint. Over the years, they developed cancers that resulted in badly eaten-away and disfigured lips and jaws. Once the danger was known, luminous radium paint was banned for this use. Today, promethium (Pm-147), with a half-life of 2.4 years, is used for this purpose. 

Some of the radium dial painters ingested amounts of radium sufficient to cause death within a few years of their employment. Martland (1931) described the cases of 18 dial painters who died of cancer at ages 20 to 54 years old. Causes of death were listed as anemia, necrosis of the jaw, and osteogenic sarcoma. The typical period of exposure was about two years. 

Radium was also used as a "rejuvenating" tonic in the 1920s and was available to the general public in bottled water. Gettler and Norris (1933) described a case of a 52-year-old man who drank about 1,400 bottles of "Radithor", containing radium at 2 pg/60 ml bottle, over a 5-year period (total dose approximately 2,800 pCi or 56 pCi/kg or 2,074 kBq/kg for a 50-kg man). The cause of death was stated to be a combination of necrosis of the jaw, abscess of the brain, secondary anemia and terminal bronchopneumonia. However, it is important to note that each of these effects can also be attributed to other etiologies. 

Most patent medicines claimed to work miracles, but ultimately did nothing to heal people, and in some cases caused actual harm, as was the case with Pittsburgh millionaire and industrialist Eben Byers. In 1928, Mr. Byers injured himself at a post-game party following the annual Yale-Harvard football game. On the advice of his physician, Byers drank three half-ounce bottles per day of a patent medicine called Radithor to ease his pain and overcome his injury. He continued this treatment for two years, but stopped abruptly when his teeth started falling out. Though the manufacturer claimed that Radithor was harmless in every respect, the concoction contained radium, a radioactive element, that not only caused Byers loss of teeth but also ate away the bones of his jaw and skull. It caused his death in 1931. 

The laborers who painted the watch faces had particularly delicate work to do. The tiny numbers required a perfect tip on the brush, and it was a common practice to lick the tip to make it paint just right. This went on all day long every day of work, so workers consumed radium-infused paint at a steady rate—for years in many cases. Many of the workers, who were mostly women, eventually developed bone cancer, particularly of the jaw. 

Women factory workers primarily applied the paint to the dials using fine, camel hair bmshes. To get the paint bmsh tip very fine, many workers touched the brushes to their lips and tongues between strokes. By the mid-1920s, serious medical and dental cases appeared. The tooth sockets of extracted teeth failed to heal. Jaw bones began to deteriorate and disintegrate. Treatments were not effective. Some workers with such health problems soon died. The workers became known as the Radium Girls. ... 

Such casual applications of radium were acceptable because at first the health hazards of radioactivity were not understood. Then researchers in the field began to develop rashes, skin lesions, and burns that could be explained only by their exposure to radioactive materials. In the 1920s, many painters of radium dials in New Jersey be an to suffer from jaw cancer - a consequence of their habit of licking their brushes to put a point on them. Scientists also noted that uranium miners suflFered abnormally high rates of lung cancer. Consumers of commercial radium concoctions were spared only because few of these products contained any appreciable amount of radium. 

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