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Previous Volume 339:930 September 24, 1998 Number 13 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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By Claudia Clark. 289 pp. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1997. $17.95. ISBN 0-8078-4640-6.

The story of the radium watch-dial painters is a classic case in the history of occupational disease. Attracted by easy work and high wages, these young women painted the luminous numbers on wristwatches that, designed for soldiers involved in the trench warfare of World War I, became a consumer fad in the 1920s. The women were taught to sharpen the tips of their paintbrushes between their lips and, as a result, they absorbed substantial quantities of radium. Their tragic illnesses and deaths led to crucial discoveries in radiobiology and contributed to the establishment of standards for the level of exposure . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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