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A severe instance of adium jaw from 1924

Summary: A severe instance of Radium jaw from 1924 As the legal battle ensued New York dentist Joseph P Knef examined the jawbone from one of the deceased dial painters named Amelia Maggia In the last few months of her life the bone had become so decayed that Dr Knef had been forced to remove it from his patient Her official cause of death had been listed as syphilis but Knef suspected otherwise He exposed the bone to dental film for a time and then developed it Patterns on the film indicated an absurd level of radiation and he confirmed the findings with an electroscope US Radium was a defense contractor with deep pockets and influential contacts so it took Grace Fryer two years to find a lawyer willing to take on her former employer A young attorney from Newark named Raymond Berry filed the suit in 1927 and four other radium injured dial painters soon joined in They sought $250 000 each in damages As the weeks and months were consumed by the slow moving court system the women s health rapidly deteriorated At their first appearance in court in January 1928 two were bedridden and none could raise their arms to take the oath Grace Fryer still described by reporters as pretty was unable to walk required a back brace to sit up and had lost all of her teeth The Radium Girls began appearing in headlines nationwide and the grim descriptions of their hopeless condition reached Marie Curie in Paris I would be only too happy to give any aid that I could she said adding there is absolutely no means of destroying the substance once it enters the human body Dust samples collected in the workroom from various locations and from chairs not used by the workers were all luminous in the dark room Their hair faces hands arms necks the dresses the underclothes even the corsets of the dial painters were luminous One of the girls showed luminous spots on her legs and thighs The back of another was luminous almost to the waist A severe instance of Radium jaw from 1924 As the legal battle ensued New York dentist Joseph P Knef examined the jawbone from one of the deceased dial painters named Amelia Maggia In the last few months of her life the bone had become so decayed that Dr Knef had been forced to remove it from his patient Her official cause of death had been listed as syphilis but Knef suspected otherwise He exposed the bone to dental film for a time and then developed it Patterns on the film indicated an absurd level of radiation and he confirmed the findings with an electroscope US Radium was a defense contractor with deep pockets and influential contacts so it took Grace Fryer two years to find a lawyer willing to take on her former employer A young attorney from Newark named Raymond Berry filed the suit in 1927 and four other radium injured dial painters soon joined in They sought $250 000 each in damages As the weeks and months were consumed by the slow moving court system the women s health rapidly deteriorated At their first appearance in court in January 1928 two were bedridden and none could raise their arms to take the oath Grace Fryer still described by reporters as pretty was unable to walk required a back brace to sit up and had lost all of her teeth The Radium Girls began appearing in headlines nationwide and the grim descriptions of their hopeless condition reached Marie Curie in Paris I would be only too happy to give any aid that I could she said adding there is absolutely no means of destroying the substance once it enters the human body Dust samples collected in the workroom from various locations and from chairs not used by the workers were all luminous in the dark room Their hair faces hands arms necks the dresses the underclothes even the corsets of the dial painters were luminous One of the girls showed luminous spots on her legs and thighs The back of another was luminous almost to the waist

Image Dimensions: 320 x 194