Memorandum, Case of Carlough vs. United States Radium Corporation, 1925

COPY 33 it 7 Nemorandum in the Case of Carlowh vs. United States Radium Corporation On Thursday, June lith, I interviewed Doctor Martin Szanalotsli, consulting chemist of the New Jersey Department of Labor, at the plant of the Burton T. Bush Company of Delawanna, of which he is the The Doctor told me that he had been advised a year or so a.go that some of the employees of the United States Radium Corporation were suffering from a condition of the jav, which greatly resembled that which has heretofore been associated with phosphorus. Some time later he learned that there wore additional cases, and at the request of the Department, he made an analysis of the luminous material used by the Radium Corporation to ascertain whether or not it contained phosphorus. A very careful analysis was made, as a result of which he found that there was absolutely no phosphorus or any phosphate or other substances which, so far as he could be turned into phosphorus when combined with other elements or chemicals. He did not analyze the substance for the purpose of determining what specific ingredients were contained in this matorial, his sole purpose being to discover, if possible, some form of phosphorus. He told me that he knows of no other chemical or substance which causes this condition of the jaw than phosphorus. This does not, however, take into account a necrosis of the jaw, as a result of abscesses, pyorrhea and other infections. The Doctor asked me what the material contained, and I told him that it was made up solely of chemically pure zine sulphide and an infinitesimal quantity of radium He has made no study of radium and does not know what its effect is. He did instruct the Labor Department to warn the Company that it should forbid its employees who used the material to put the brushes or anything else which might have the substance on it into their mouths: also that they should wash their hands and faces frequently; nor eat candy or anything else which they touched while their hands may have had any of the substance on them. Before going to Europe last summer, the Doctor was requested by the New Jersey Department of Labor to find out, if possible, whether the European concerns, which used similar luminous materials, had any History of similar conditions among their employees. The Doctor says that in Germany very careful statistics and records are kept at Berlin by the Department of Industrial Accident Insurance because almost every class of injury, sustained in the course of employment, is covered by such insurance whether sustained through accident, occupational disease or otherwise. He inquired at this Department and found that there was no record of any similar cases among the German industries, and that the danger was unknown there. In Switzerland there is no mational bureau or department which has satisfactory records of such industrial conditions because there de no law similar to that of Germany. The Doctor thought that he would be most likely