Daily MOS: Phossy Jaw

There’s a saying that regulations are written in blood. At least one is written under a pile of necrotic jaw bones of nineteenth century matchstick makers.

Today’s Moment of Science… phossy jaw.

We figured out what phosphorus was when a German alchemist named Hennig Brand in the 1600s boiled down over a thousand gallons of piss in attempt to create a philosopher’s stone. As you do. He didn’t make the legendary stone, but he did get a spectacularly stinky basement and a glowing 120 grams of phosphorus, becoming the first person in modern history to discover a new element.

Cut to the 1800s and phosphorus found itself dancing on the head of a match. If you’re using matches today, likely you have to use a striking strip to light them. The white phosphorus matches though? A touch of friction and they were set ablaze.

Convenience, as history keeps showing us, often sends the bill later.

The phosphorus itself isn’t the problem, but that’s kinda like saying it’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop. True, you need some phosphorus in your diet. But as is the case with so many chemicals, some forms of phosphorus can be more harmful than others. In the human body, white phosphorus can readily be converted to amino-bisphosphonate, which in turn can cause osteonecrosis of the jaw.

I.e. Phossy Jaw, which is also my favorite dance move in the musical Chicago.
(I accept your groans.)

It worked its damage slowly, quietly. By the time you knew you were sick, it was far too late. Your jaw wasn’t long for this world.

In 1839, Austrian physician Friedrich Wilhelm Lorinser diagnosed the first known patient with the disorder, a woman who’d been working as a matchstick maker for five years. ‘Phosphorimus chronicus,’ he named it, diagnosing dozens of cases by 1844, all with the common link of unknowingly inhaling phosphorus like fucking cocaine.

It’s unclear why exactly matchstick makers the world over while dabbing their brows with stacks of money didn’t collectively decide, right away, that perhaps making their employees faces melt off was a poor long term business decision.

By the 1850s, phossy jaw was well documented in medical literature, and Charles Dickens even wrote about the “evil” of matchmaking, and called phosphorus matches “lucifer matches.” Subtle, Chuck.

But perhaps more people should have swung with a blunt instrument, because not enough was done to end unsafe working conditions for matchstick makers.

The London Matchgirls Strike of 1888 fought for safer working conditions at Bryant & May, a matchstick titan in East London. It took years for their demands to be met, but in the meantime, seemingly in response to the outcry, the Salvation Army opened their own matchstick factory in East London by 1891. They paid double the wage of their competitor, and used a safer chemical sibling, the slightly more expensive red phosphorus.

By 1901, Bryant and May stopped using the poisonous white phosphorous. It would take until the end of the decade for it to be banned entirely in England.

Phossy jaw afflicted workers in matchstick factories for a simply obscene number of decades after we understood the cause. The first ban came down in Finland in 1872, and it took until 1925 for the last major producer of matches made with white phosphorus to ban the practice.

Depending on who you ask, red phosphorus was an improvement; matches were safer now, needing a strike sheet to ignite. But they were also like 20% less cool. So.

Phossy jaw has made a reappearance in modern times. Biphosphonates are used today for a number of pharmaceutical applications, and a side effect? Every so often, a patient undergoing bisphosphonate infusions for cancer develops a good old fashioned case of phossy jaw.

This has been your daily Moment of Science, reminding you that we know the cause of black lung, and yet.

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About SciBabe 375 Articles
Yvette d'Entremont, aka SciBabe, is a chemist and writer living in North Hollywood with her roommate, their pack of dogs, and one SciKitten. She bakes a mean gluten free chocolate chip cookie and likes glitter more than is considered healthy for a woman past the age of seven.

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