At the start of the 20th century, many believed that radium had beneficial health properties and it was often added to consumer products such as toothpaste, hair creams, and even food. Used until the early 1970s, radium was found in some consumer paints, dials on clocks and some industrial applications. Radium was also used in some medical practices during the 20th century. in New Mexico, United States The disease was determined by
pathologist Dr.
H.S. Martland in 1924 to be symptomatic of radium paint ingestion, after many female workers from various radium paint companies reported similar dental and
mandibular pain. The first written reference to the disease was by a dentist, Dr. Theodor Blum, in 1924, who described an unusual mandibular
osteomyelitis in a dial painter, naming it "radium jaw". Symptoms were present in the mouth due to use of the lips and tongue to keep the radium-paint paintbrushes properly shaped. The disease was the main reason for litigation against the
United States Radium Corporation by the
Radium Girls, female factory workers who contracted illnesses due to radium exposure from painting watch dials with
self-luminous paint in the early 20th century. A prominent example of this condition was the death of American golfer and industrialist
Eben Byers in 1932, after taking large doses of
Radithor, a radioactive patent medicine containing radium, over several years. His illness garnered much publicity, and brought the problem of
radioactive quack medicines into the public eye. Stories such as that of the Radium Girls and Eben Byers's death went public and due to public pressure and outrage, the
Food and Drug Administration banned most radiation-based
patent medicines in 1932. ==See also==