The Power of Radium – Health & Medicine in American History

Heather Roesch is a biochemistry major at Grinnell College. After graduation (2018), she will be pursuing a Masters in Forensic Science.

The discovery of radium in 1998 by Marie and Pierre Curie changed the American public’s view about both scientific limitations as well as public health. When radium was first extracted from pitchblende, a uranium ore, little was known about the element’s capabilities [1]. However, radium did not make its way into American culture until 1903, being incredibly expensive to acquire, at some points reaching $125,000 per gram [2,3]. Most radium had to be imported to the United States from European mines and refineries until 1910 when research allowed American refineries to increase the supply of radium. By 1913, three-fourths of the radium being produced in the world came from American ores [4]. This drastic increase in production was caused by demand for radium within the medical profession. The substance started being used as a cancer treatment, though only for the very rich [5]. Doctors created lengthy lists of conditions that could be alleviated with radium treatment, suggesting it could be a great therapeutic agent [6]. According to some estimations, one doctor from 1913 to 1917 reported injecting radium into 1,500-2,000 patients in order to identify doses for successful therapy [7]. The perceived effectiveness of radium created an explosion in American culture, the consequences of which may have a greater half-life than radium itself.

Popularity

After the first medical usage of radium, mainly for the treatment of cancer, new therapeutic and aggressive methods were put into action. This therapy involved implanting radium-filled needles directly into cancerous tissue [8]. When news spread to the general public that radium could treat cancer, many assumed that radium could be a miracle cure for every disease. Headlines declared it as a “Positive Cure for Every Disease” [9]. Through advertisement, radium was portrayed as “abundant rather than rare, mineral rather than chemical, and healthful rather than medicinal.” This phenomenon occurred because the general public, relying solely on their faith in the teachings of the scientific community, held science in high regard[10]. Therefore, radium was used in treating skin ailments like birthmarks and eczema, as well as gout, rheumatism, arthritis, anemia, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, asthma, hay fever, bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, hemorrhoids, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, insomnia, and even neurasthenia [11]. Radium could also be applied locally for the relief of pain [12]. Radium’s acceptance as a sort of “all-purpose intensifier” of whatever it was applied to reflected the hyperbolic nature of its public profile [13].

It is well known today that radium is a very dangerous substance, only a minute amount of deposited radium in the human body—as little as a microgram (i.e. one ten-thousandth of a milligram)—can prove dangerous and even fatal [14]. Yet, at the time, very few scientists or advertisements discussed or even referred to its physical properties. Instead, radioactivity was represented exclusively in terms of its restorative ability, the mechanism for which was never referred to except in broadly naturopathic terms [15]. Radium was also thought to have tonic properties, increasing the popularity of all things radium, such as radium spas, condoms, pills, creams, and pillows [16]. The residue of radium ore was even used as sand in children’s play boxes [17]. Stores sold portable, small size devices known as water jars that produced radioactive water good for any “common ailment” that one could imagine. Those jars guaranteed that the produced radioactive water “aids nature” and works as natural “vitalizer” [18]. Radium, both figuratively and literally, illuminated the middle class American culture and became an object worth for advertising; in the industrial system of radium extractions, the beauty industry, and the production of luminous paint, radium embodied mass consumption [19].

Radium Girls

What ultimately brought the age of the ‘radium revolution’ to a close was a group of women who worked in luminous watch factories painting the dials with a radium-based paint. These women are infamously known as the Radium Girls. Radium dial painting in U.S. clock and watch factories began in 1917 in response to the need of American doughboys to tell time in the blacked-out trenches along the European Western Front [20]. Initially, this job was seen as ideal, since the best dial painters could paint about 250 watches a day and make almost $25 a week [21]. In addition, because radium was considered a miracle cure-all, exposure to the element was considered good for the women’s health [22]. However, in a group of eleven women at one New Jersey factory, six were diagnosed with anemia, eight with leukopenia, three with relative lymphocytosis, and one with eosinophilia; five of the eleven had a combination of two or more of these conditions [23]. The link between radium and health problems of the dial painters was not officially established until 1925, when U.S. Radium, the company that employed the New Jersey dial painters, did not inform the workers of the dangers of working with radium, even though company officials knew that the substance was potentially harmful [24]. This issue was taken to court, but an out of court settlement was reached in 1928. Each of the dial painters received a lump sum payment of $15,000 along with an annual annuity of $600 to cover future medical expenses related to radium poisoning [25].

The main result of this settlement was the ban of wetting brushes with the lips, lip pointing. This practice was the primary source of radium entry into women’s bodies. The ban, issued on paper, was likely enforced by the women’s own fear; lip pointing originated as a strategy to work at a faster pace in order to better meet daily quotas [26]. Yet, even after these effects were known, radium dial painting still continued. Dial painters in Ottawa, Illinois, who worked for Luminous Processes, Inc., from 1940 to 1978 were told that radium was safe [27]. The women were told not to be afraid. “Radium is not going to affect you here now because it’s all different. It’s all changed. You . . . don’t put the brush in your mouth to make a point, you know, to paint the dial” [28]. Officials continuously denied that sickness of the workers was related to radium. Changes in the safety of workers did not change until the development of OSHA in 1971.

Conclusion

The story of radium illustrates that with the increase in scientific advancements, the information that is portrayed to the public can be easily manipulated. During the 1920s, the general public put a lot of faith into science and the possibility of miracle cures. Radium is yet another example of products, made available to the public in the name of health, that have turned out to be detrimental. Radium exemplifies the continued role professional science plays throughout history of public health in the United States because many instances, like the Radium Girls’ case point out flaws in public health measures created to protect Americans while the full harm of a product is not yet fully understood. Even after the harm is known, changing public opinion can be difficult without creating distrust in science and medicine because if new treatments are developed, the public would be skeptical, slowing advancements. We see this trend continue today, with people like anti-vaxxers or those who seek out alternative medicine. Only time will tell if the procedures we practice today will be looked down upon in the future.

[1]Rentetzi, Maria. 2008. “The U.S. Radium Industry: Industrial In-house Research and the Commercialization of Science.” Minerva: A Review Of Science, Learning & Policy 46, no. 4: 437-462. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[2]Lavine, Matthew. “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture.” Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol 39, no. 1 (2014): 53-63.

[3]Van Wyck, Peter C. “Radium.” In Highway of the Atom, 87-92. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt80mfz.3

[4]Rentetzi, Maria. “Trafficking Materials in Tin Boxes, Glass Bottles, and Lead Cases: Radium in Early Twentieth Century Science, Medicine, and Commerce.” In Precarious Matters / Prekäre Stoffe: The History of Dangerous and Endangered Substances in the 19th and 20th Centuries, 99-111, 2008.

[5]Lavine, Matthew. “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture.” Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol 39, no. 1 (2014): 53-63.

[6]]Rentetzi, Maria. “Trafficking Materials in Tin Boxes, Glass Bottles, and Lead Cases: Radium in Early Twentieth Century Science, Medicine, and Commerce.” In Precarious Matters / Prekäre Stoffe: The History of Dangerous and Endangered Substances in the 19th and 20th Centuries, 99-111, 2008.

[7]Rentetzi, Maria. 2008. “The U.S. Radium Industry: Industrial In-house Research and the Commercialization of Science.” Minerva: A Review Of Science, Learning & Policy 46, no. 4: 437-462. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[8]Van Wyck, Peter C. “Radium.” In Highway of the Atom, 87-92. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt80mfz.3

[9]Lavine, Matthew. “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture.” Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol 39, no. 1 (2014): 53-63.

[10]Lavine, Matthew. “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture.” Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol 39, no. 1 (2014): 53-63.

[11]Van Wyck, Peter C. “Radium.” In Highway of the Atom, 87-92. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt80mfz.3

[12]Rentetzi, Maria. “Trafficking Materials in Tin Boxes, Glass Bottles, and Lead Cases: Radium in Early Twentieth Century Science, Medicine, and Commerce.” In Precarious Matters / Prekäre Stoffe: The History of Dangerous and Endangered Substances in the 19th and 20th Centuries, 99-111, 2008.

[13]Lavine, Matthew. “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture.” Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol 39, no. 1 (2014): 53-63.

[14]Samponaro, Philip. 2007. “Painting a Nightmare: Women and Radium Work at the E. Ingraham Company, 1923-1935.” Labor: Studies In Working Class History Of The Americas 4, no. 2: 9-21. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[15]Lavine, Matthew. “The Two Faces of Radium in Early American Nuclear Culture.” Bull. Hist. Chem. Vol 39, no. 1 (2014): 53-63.

[16]Van Wyck, Peter C. “Radium.” In Highway of the Atom, 87-92. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt80mfz.3

[17]Cooper, Dan, and Brian Grinder. “The Playboy and the Radium Girls (Part 2: The Radium Girls).” Financial History no. 91 (Summer2008 2008): 13-15. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[18]Rentetzi, Maria. “Trafficking Materials in Tin Boxes, Glass Bottles, and Lead Cases: Radium in Early Twentieth Century Science, Medicine, and Commerce.” In Precarious Matters / Prekäre Stoffe: The History of Dangerous and Endangered Substances in the 19th and 20th Centuries, 99-111, 2008.

[19]Ibid.

[20]Samponaro, Philip. 2007. “Painting a Nightmare: Women and Radium Work at the E. Ingraham Company, 1923-1935.” Labor: Studies In Working Class History Of The Americas 4, no. 2: 9-21. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[21]Cooper, Dan, and Brian Grinder. “The Playboy and the Radium Girls (Part 2: The Radium Girls).” Financial History no. 91 (Summer2008 2008): 13-15. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[22]Ibid.

[23]Samponaro, Philip. 2007. “Painting a Nightmare: Women and Radium Work at the E. Ingraham Company, 1923-1935.” Labor: Studies In Working Class History Of The Americas 4, no. 2: 9-21. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[24]Cooper, Dan, and Brian Grinder. “The Playboy and the Radium Girls (Part 2: The Radium Girls).” Financial History no. 91 (Summer2008 2008): 13-15. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[25]Ibid.

[26]Samponaro, Philip. 2007. “Painting a Nightmare: Women and Radium Work at the E. Ingraham Company, 1923-1935.” Labor: Studies In Working Class History Of The Americas 4, no. 2: 9-21. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[27]Cooper, Dan, and Brian Grinder. “The Playboy and the Radium Girls (Part 2: The Radium Girls).” Financial History no. 91 (Summer2008 2008): 13-15. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).

[28]Samponaro, Philip. 2007. “Painting a Nightmare: Women and Radium Work at the E. Ingraham Company, 1923-1935.” Labor: Studies In Working Class History Of The Americas 4, no. 2: 9-21. America: History and Life with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 28, 2018).