Radium (Ra) is an element with the number 88 on the periodic
table. When freshly prepared it is a brilliant white metal that quickly darkens
when exposed to the air. It glows in the dark, giving a faint bluish-green
luminescence.
It was discovered in 1898 by the double Nobel Prize winner
Marie Curie (1867-1934), who failed to recognise just how dangerous it was. She
was unaware that it was a million times more radioactive than uranium and
highly carcinogenic. She regularly handled radium and other radioactive
elements without taking protective measures and even kept lumps of radium in
her desk because she liked the way it glowed. Her work undoubtedly led to her
death from a form of leukaemia, and even today some of her personal papers have
to be stored in lead-lined cases and are considered to be too dangerous to handle
without wearing protective clothing.
During the years before the full dangers presented by radium
were appreciated, it would take the lives of many more people who worked with
it in ignorance of the dangers to which they were unwittingly exposed.
Radium was added to many patent medicines and products such
as hair cream and toothpaste, because the glow was thought to indicate
health-giving properties, when the precise opposite was the case.
In 1917, the US Radium Corporation produced a brand of
luminous paint called Undark, invented by Dr Sabin von Sochocky. The
corporation supplied the US military with it in the form of luminescent watch dials and
instrument faces. Although the company’s managers and scientists protected
themselves by using lead screens and protective clothing when handling radium,
these precautions were not extended to their employees, who were mainly young
women hired to paint the watch dials with radium paint.
The girls were so impressed by the luminescence of Undark
that they used it as make-up and to decorate their fingernails. One radium
worker is known to have painted her teeth with it before going on a date, so
that her smile would glow in the dark.
Encouraged by their managers, the workers regularly shaped
their brushes by using their lips and tongues, which led many of them ingesting
considerable quantities of radium.
The results were devastating, with many of the women
developing mouth cancers, bone fractures and what was termed “radium jaw”, a type
of necrosis. There were hundreds of premature deaths.
When these cases were brought to public attention, the
company denied the claims and organised a medical cover-up. Eventually, justice
was done when the subsequent court case became a cornerstone of labour safety
law.
Radium also took the life of the inventor of Undark. Dr von Sochocky
died in 1928 from aplastic anaemia, the same disease that would kill Marie
Curie in 1934.
© John Welford
