
Doctors were puzzled as to the cause of her condition, and, oddly, they determined that she had died of syphilis. Maggia died on September 12, 1922, of a massive hemorrhage. The mysterious malady spread throughout Maggia’s mouth and lower jaw, which had to be removed, then into other parts of her body.
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Painful ulcers, bleeding and full of pus, developed where the teeth had been. Soon the tooth next to it also had to be extracted. Maggia’s first symptom was a toothache, which required the removal of the tooth. (later the United States Radium Corp.) in Orange, New Jersey. Among the first was Amelia (“Mollie”) Maggia, who painted watches for the Radium Luminous Materials Corp. It wasn’t long before the “Radium Girls” began to experience the physical ravages of their exposure. Marie Curie suffered radiation burns while handling it, and she eventually died from radiation exposure. Radium can be extremely dangerous, especially with repeated exposure. When they asked about radium’s safety, they were assured by their managers that they had nothing to worry about. Because some of the watch dials on which they worked were extremely small, they were instructed to use their lips to bring their paint brushes to a fine point. What’s more, the painters ingested the radioactive substance as part of their job. Some even applied the paint to their teeth because it gave them radiant smiles. Many of the women wore their best dresses on the job so the fabric would shine brilliantly when they went dancing after work.
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The women hired to paint dials came to be known as “ghost girls” because the radium dust to which they were exposed daily made their clothes, hair, and skin literally glow. Because it had been used successfully in the treatment of cancer, many considered radium a miracle element, and a variety of commercial products were manufactured in which radium was an ingredient, including toothpaste and cosmetics. Radium had been discovered just 20 years earlier by French physicists Marie Curie and Pierre Curie, and its properties were not well known. Hundreds of young women were hired for the well-paying painting jobs because their small hands were well suited for the exacting, detailed work.
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