Schaub succumbed to radium poisoning in 1933 at the age of 31. The universal horror caused by this case contributed to a 1941 bill that made all industrial diseases compensable and extended the time during which workers could discover the illness. This measure occurred too late, according to a two-year statute of limitations, to actually benefit the women who had suffered from radium poisoning. The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. The League campaigned successfully to have radium necrosis recognized as an occupational disease by the State Workmen’s Compensation Board in 1926. Findings demonstrated that the radium Schaub had ingested at work was plated in her bones, causing necroses, joint deterioration, anemia, and cancers from which she and other painters suffered. An investigation made by the Consumers League of New Jersey looked into Schaub’s illness. Although she had two teeth removed to ease the pain, Schaub was plagued by “gloomy” thoughts and bouts of nervousness. In the fall of 1923, Schaub began to have trouble with her teeth. After the war, doctors discovered that these women were dying of anemia and a disease called radium necrosis (radium poisoning)which ate away their jawbones. These women were directed to point up the brushes with their tongues which led to the consequent ingestion of radioactive paint. Radium Corporation in Orange painted luminous numbers on watch faces. But after repeated exposure to the radium-laced paint, they began to develop mysterious, often fatal illnesses that they traced to conditions in the. Her death alerted authorities to the dangers of radio-activity.ĭuring World War I, young women employed at the U. Claudia Clark's book tells the compelling story of these women, who at first had no idea that the tedious task of dialpainting was any different from the other factory jobs available to them. Radium Corporation plant in Orange was an early victim of radium poisoning. Katherine Schaub (1902-1933), a watch dial painter at the U.S.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |