AMELIA MAGGIA JAW AND RADIUM POISONING FULL

The home is currently a multi family home that contains 2,446 square feet and was built in 1873.Ĭause_of_death: Radium sarcoma, industrial poisoningĬlaim_to_fame: The Odd and the Interestingīest_know_for: Amelia ‘Mollie’ Maggia was the middle child of seven Maggia sisters listed in order of age: Louise, Clara, Albina, Mollie, Quinta, Irma and Josephine. The home where Quinta lived during her illness is still standing and located at 386 Highland Ave, Orange, NJ 07050.

AMELIA MAGGIA JAW AND RADIUM POISONING FULL

Quinta’s final gift to her friends, family and doctor – she allowed a full autopsy after her death. He had gotten sick from radium in his hands, not the jaw, but the circumstances of his death helped the Radium Girls in court. Ironically, the inventor of radium dial paint, Dr Sabin Arnold von Sochocky, died in November 1928, becoming the 16th known victim of poisoning by radium dial paint. By using a technique known as “lip – dip – paint” they would put the brush on their lips after each application to tighten the brush hairs, ingesting the paint hundreds of times a day for years. The Radium Girls ingested radioactive radium through the special paint formula they used to paint the dials on clocks, watches, aircraft instruments and other applications. She eventually lapsed into a coma and died at the age of 29 leaving behind two young children. Upon her final hospitalization the doctors noticed a large sarcoma on her leg - the kind of bone tumor that killed a fellow Radium Girl a year before. Sometime later she noticed pain in her ankles, legs and hips and was put into plaster casts to keep her immobile in the chance this might bring some relieve. Unlike her sister before her, she received a diagnoses of radium poisoning and was told there was no cure. After Amelia's death, Quinta initially went to the doctor complaining of dental pain where her teeth began to just drop out of her mouth.

These problems were exhibited in Amelia Maggia, the first dial painter to die from radiation sickness. Common issues included bone cancer, anemia, lesions, and sores. Long-term radiation sickness symptoms soon became present among many of the women who worked with radium paint. Some would even paint the buttons on their dresses or their nails, but the joy of the radium glow was short lived.

They would go home from a day of painting with their clothes glowing from the radium exposure.

The initial effects of radium seemed harmless, and the substance was popular amongst the younger girls in the factory. Like her sisters she would end up paying the price. Quinta was recruited to work at the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey as a dial-painter. Children of Italian immigrants, Albina, Mollie, Quinta and Irma all worked in the radium-dial factory. Quinta Maggia McDonald was the middle child of seven Maggia sisters listed in order of age: Louise, Clara, Albina, Mollie, Quinta, Irma and Josephine.

Amelia maggia jaw and radium poisoning