![]() When she was admitted, her general health and appetite were described as good but it was difficult and painful for her to chew. Despite this, she continued to work in the factory until a week before she was admitted to Bellevue Hospital on 17 th December 1855. To relieve the pain, first her gums were lanced and later a tooth was extracted, but the swelling gradually increased until a spontaneous opening formed under her jaw which continuously discharged pus. In May 1855, she was seized with toothache and swelling on the right side of her lower jaw. She’d worked eight hours a day in the packing department of a New York match factory for two and half years. The first half is a detailed case history of his patient, 16 year old Cornelia. In 1857, James Rushmore Wood wrote an article about his experience of operating on a patient with ‘phossy jaw’, called ‘Removal of the entire lower jaw’ which included illustrations of the results. In addition, the gums developed an eerie greenish white ‘glow’ in the dark. Workers in match factories developed unbearable abscesses in their mouths, leading to facial disfigurement and sometimes fatal brain damage. Phosphorus necrosis of the jaw, commonly called ‘phossy jaw’, was a really horrible disease and overwhelmingly a disease of the poor. ![]() ![]() It also led to a new industrial disease that lasted until roughly 1906, when the production of phosphorous matches was outlawed by the International Berne Convention.īy 1858, detailed medical reports of a disease involving the slow progression of exposed jaw bone started to appear. The demand for the new ‘strike-anywhere’ matches was enormous, creating a profitable international industry. In the early 19th century, it was discovered that adding yellow (now called white) phosphorous to matchstick heads made them easier to ignite.
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