• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPM
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    3 days ago

    Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

    The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three factories in the United States: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and one in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s.

    • deathmetal27@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      They were instructed to wet the tip of the brushes on their tongue to make it pointy. Causing them to regularly ingest small quantities of Radium.

      • Ptsf@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Sounds like good old American manufacturing. Could have easily left a little cup with water nearby, but the workers got a tongue so that would just drive up costs!

          • Ptsf@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            Eh, some of them maybe but try and remember that it’s a tool for economic function, yes there are alternatives, but surely Stalinist communism taught us that any economic system like any tool can be abused. It’s most likely we’ll need a better culture if we’re to fix the issues with the world that capitalism is often used to exasperate.

  • JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    This is why workplace safety regulations exist and why part of those requirements is that workers are informed of the hazards they are going to encounter during work.

    • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
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      2 days ago

      People who are broadly anti regulation are fools or villains. Fools don’t know history and villains don’t care. Sometimes people are both.

      • taxiiiii@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        no no, the invisible hand of the market will fix it! it’s just, sometimes, the fix is death. Oh, and child labor.

  • pulsewidth@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Reminds me of the ‘radioactive eagle scout’, because while he was attempting to build his breeder reactor from old radioactive material - including clock paint from antique clocks - his ‘big score’ was that he found an almost full bottle of radium paint in the back of a clock.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn

    Nb: I believe that story is from Ken Silverstein’s book about him, its not in the Wiki article.

    • Septian@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Jesus that wiki article got real sad, real quick. From a promising potential career and boundless curiosity to dead at 39 from drug abuse with paranoid schizophrenia. Don’t tinker with radioactive elements without a proper understanding of required safety procedures and maximum exposure levels, folks.

      • lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        Also, proper understanding of the safety procedures won’t protect you. You have to actually apply them. Don’t ask me how I found it.

  • itsgroundhogdayagain@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    They were encouraged to lick the brushes before dipping them in the “paint”. Obviously, the brushes would still have paint residue on them from the last time they were dipped.

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    If there’s one thing I’ve learned from history, it’s to not lick things that aren’t people, and to be very careful licking those