^ The Radium Water Worked Fine until His Jaw Came Off Medical Collectors Association, Newsletter No.^ 'Radium Girls: The Women Who Fought for Their Lives in a Killer Workplace | Britannica'.The Journal of the American Dental Association. 'Osteomyelitis of the Mandible and Maxilla'. ^ 'Health effects of Radium radiation exposure | '.^ 'The Radium Girls, Radium Jaw And Death By Unnatural Causes | BEYONDbones'.^ Orci, Taylor (March 7, 2013), 'How We Realized Putting Radium in Everything Was Not the Answer', The Atlantic, retrieved.^ Grady, Denise (October 6, 1998), 'A Glow in the Dark, and a Lesson in Scientific Peril', New York Times, retrieved.Acute radiation syndrome (not involved in radium jaw).Stories such as the Radium Girls and Eben Byers death went public and due to public pressure/outrage, the Food and Drug Administration banned most radiation-based patent medicines in 1932. The Wall Street Journal ran a story (in 1989 or after) titled 'The Radium Water Worked Fine until His Jaw Came Off'. His illness garnered much publicity, and brought the problem of radioactive quack medicines into the public eye. Ī prominent example of this condition was the death of American golfer and industrialist Eben Byers in 1932, after taking large doses of Radithor, a radioactive patent medicine containing radium, over several years. The disease was the main reason for litigation against the United States Radium Corporation by the Radium Girls, female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint in the early 20th century. Symptoms were present in the mouth due to use of the lips and tongue to keep the radium-paint paintbrushes properly shaped. Theodor Blum, in 1924, who described an unusual mandibular osteomyelitis in a dial painter, naming it 'radium jaw'. The first written reference to the disease was by a dentist, Dr. Martland in 1924 to be symptomatic of radium paint ingestion, after many female workers from various radium paint companies reported similar dental and mandibular pain. The disease was determined by pathologist Dr. A bottle of Radithor at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in New Mexico, United States Radium was also used in some medical practices during the 20th century. Used until the early 1970s, radium was found in some consumer paints, dials on clocks and some industrial applications. History Īt the start of the 20th century, many believed that radium had beneficial health properties and was often added to consumer products such as toothpaste, hair creams, and even food. Alpha particles emitted by the radium leads to bone necrosis and bone cancer. This is significant, because while calcium strengthens bone structures, radium degrades the quality of said bone structure. Radium can cause fatal injuries due to radium and calcium sharing similar chemistry causing the body to mistake the radioactive metal for calcium and incorporate it into bone tissue. Once the symptoms of radium jaw take effect, there is nothing that can be done to reduce the chance of death from radiation poisoning. Symptoms also include soreness throughout the body, significant decrease in body weight and loss of teeth. The symptoms are necrosis of the mandible (lower jawbone) and the maxilla (upper jaw), constant bleeding of the gums, and (usually) after some time, severe distortion due to bone tumors and porosity of the lower jaw. The condition is similar to phossy jaw, an osteoporotic and osteonecrotic illness of matchgirls, brought on by phosphorus ingestion and absorption.

It also affected those consuming radium-laden patent medicines. Radium jaw, or radium necrosis, is a historic occupational disease brought on by the ingestion and subsequent absorption of radium into the bones of radium dial painters.

Former occupational disease caused by radium, resulting in deformation of the jawbones The American journal of roentgenology, radium therapy and nuclear medicine (1906)

Man who lost his jaw to radium