Report, June 30, 1930

JUL 1 1930 121 East 60th Street, New York, June 30, 1930. REPORT OF EXAMINATION OF MRS. RUTH WINTERS SAXER, AT THE NEW JERSEY ORTHOPEDIC HOSPITAL, ORANGE, NEW JERSEY, JUNE 30, 1930. HISTORY. Patient was employed by the U. S. Radium Corporation from the fall of 1917 to the spring of 1921. During most of that time, she states, her work consisted of painting luminous dials. She claims to have pointed the brushes in her mouth habitually, often several times during the painting of one dial, and to have painted as many as 48 dials an hour. She states that she never worked at a similar occupation elsewhere. About 7 years ago, or about two years after leaving the employ of the company, she had two teeth extracted. Hemorrhages from the gums followed. About 6 years ago she began to have pain in her feet. Later she developed pains in the lower back and hips. About January 1929 her right knee gave way under" her. Having been treated by various practitioners, regular and irregular, under various diagnoses: weak feet, nervous breakdown, "dropped stomach" and rheumatism, she finally went to Dr. R. E. Humphries at the New Jersey Orthopedic Hospital about January 1930. He has made a diagnosis of radium poisoning, basedoon the history and the evidence in the x-ray films of the pelvis of changes about the hip joints and sacro-iliac joints which he considers characteristic of radium damage. PRESENT COMPLAINTS. Marked nervousness; pain in the back, hips, both legs, and at times in the arms; loss of weight (formerly 114 lbs.; now 98 lbs.) EXAMINATION. The patient, a young woman of slight build, appears pale. Her morale seems poor. During the taking of the testimony she cried twice. Gait: slow, shuffling, unsteady, requiring some support. Station: fairly erect. She is apparently unable to touch the floor when standing, although she can unlace her shoes when sitting. There is some slight complaint of limitation on attempted motion of the right shoulder. Tenderness is apparently present over the back of the left wrist. Otherwise the upper extremities appear to be normal. No tenderness was found over the spine or pelvis; patient refers her back pain to the lower sacral region. There is some limitation of motion, and pain at the hips is elicited on attempts to rotate either femur. There is a prominence over the tuberosity of the left 5th metatarsal bone, which is tender. The only X-ray films available were the duplicate (stereoscopic) views of the pelvis, taken in February 1930. These show changes, (irregular destruction and proliferation), in the neck of each femur and about the scaro-iliac joints, possibly also in the lower lumbar vertebrae, similar to the changes seen in the films of the 5 cases I