Her whole head was rotting, but she was still alive.
No, I did not pick up a zombie novel; this is the ghastly horror of radium jaw. I am no longer convinced that phosphorus poisoning is worse than radium poisoning, but if you were a dentist in the early-mid 1920s and encountered a case of the latter, there's a good chance you would believe you had seen the former.
Radium Girls is proving to be a page-turner. The author does an excellent job capturing the changing attitude towards radium over the years. In 1917, when the first radium watch factories were opening, working with radium was
the job to have, particularly for young women. It was glamorous, it was fun, it was a good work environment where you'd make many new friends, and it paid in the top 5% of wages for working women of the day, at least for an average-productivity worker, as you were paid by the number of dials painted. If you were exceptionally skilled, you could make very good money indeed. The latest styles, silk dresses, fine millinery, pearls, your own place to live, the ability to help your family - and no education required.
And you quite literally glowed in the dark. Girls would wear their best dresses in to work at the factory, simply to get the dust from the radium paint on them so they would glow in the dark at a dance that evening. Some joked around with colleagues or their siblings and painted radium mustaches on themselves. One girl painted her teeth with the radium paint, so she would have a smile that would really knock out her date.
The most expensive substance in the world in 1917 was
fun. Local newspapers wrote about the Radium Girls as the talk of the town, and if you were a young man, how could you not want to be courting, and eventually marrying, a girl who literally
glows?
The work was important, too. By the end of 1918, one in six American soldiers had a radium watch, a useful tool in the war effort, and radium was used for gunsights in airplanes as well; the military was a major customer. More and more workers were hired, factories expanded, working hours increased, throughout 1917 and 1918. And the watches proved popular, so demand did not diminish when the war ended, but instead civilians wanted glow-in-the-dark alarm clocks and watches. You could buy the Westclox Big Ben, or if your budget was more meager, the Westclox Scotty. I had one of the latter nearby while reading the book, and sure enough, it glows in the dark.
Radium water, radium treatments for common colds, radium dust sand for the children's playground in the town where the factory was located. Radium radiated good health; it could cure cancer, after all. Not everyone could afford it yet, but some day not just A-list celebrities, but everyone could drink radium water.
Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The opening sentence describes Marguerite Carlough in 1925, about 18 months after her symptoms first developed. Many did not live that long after their first symptoms, usually tooth pain, which would quickly become agonizing. Eventually the necrosis would spread elsewhere - knees, feet, legs, hips, back, or ears being among the candidates, or perhaps you'd notice a slight limp first, and then have dental issues. It's natural to have more aches as you get older, many rationalized at first - although "older" often meant only "early 20s" - but it's not natural for an extracted tooth to not heal, or the limp to be permanent... or for more and more of your friends from your old job to start having similar symptoms at such young ages, and an alarming number of them to start dying at 22, 24, or 25 years old.
The cast of characters in the book is large, but the author does a good job reminding you of who each person is, and the approach of letting you get to know their lives and ambitions and personalities a bit, and then showing you what happens to them. This is far more effective than a high-level overview would be - and that was true for the people experiencing the events as well. You could read about the dangers - or benefits - of radium at the time, and have tentative beliefs one way or the other, but you couldn't meet Marguerite Carlough twelve months after her symptoms had started and not be moved to pity, soon followed by determination, or anger as you realized she was far from the only such case.
Highly recommended. Although if you are a dentist or dental hygienist, it may well give you nightmares, and I sincerely hope you never encounter such a case in your professional career.
Now if Cleopatra would just hurry up, the book would be done so much sooner...
However it is a good habit to read I just don't know what to read yet.
