U.S. Radium founder Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sashaki, aware of radium's dangers from personal experience, hacked off the tip of his own left index finger after radium got into it — yet concealed this knowledge from his workers.
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At 30:40 · chapter starts 28:50
The episode's most damning revelation arrives here: U.S. Radium founder Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sashaki was not ignorant of radium's dangers — he had lived them. Author Kate Moore documents that early in the company's history, radium got into von Sashaki's left index finger, and he hacked off the tip himself, saying it looked 'as though an animal had gnawed it.' The body's fatal confusion between radium and calcium — absorbing the radioactive element into bone where it continuously decays tissue — was explained to von Sashaki by radiation experts. He raised concerns to the board and was overruled. He then said nothing to the hundreds of young women putting radium-coated brushes in their mouths every day [1] — Alaina Urquhart "Von Sashaki cut off his own finger tip: U.S. Radium founder Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sashaki, aware of radium's dangers from personal experienc…" 30:40 . 'Within at least a few years of founding his company,' Alaina states flatly, 'von Sashaki knew radium-based paint was extraordinarily dangerous. But he kept that knowledge from his employees.'
U.S. Radium founder Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sashaki personally experienced radium's destructive power when he cut off his own fingertip after radium got in. He knew within years of founding the company that the paint was deadly. He told the board. He still let thousands of young women lick their brushes.
The body mistakes radium for calcium, absorbing it into bones where it continuously releases alpha particles, decaying and destroying bone tissue from within.
When the dial painters walked home after their shifts, they glowed in the dark — hair, clothes, and skin coated in luminescent radium dust. Some deliberately wore their dance dresses to work on Fridays so they would glow on the dance floor later. They were celebrated as glamorous local celebrities; no one knew they were walking around irradiated.
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