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Classic case of survivorship bias
People back in the day had just as much terrible advice as we have today, it's just that the only one that survived long enough to survive to the present day is the really good advice
But to answer the question, anything related to the ingestion of mercury
Or anything radioactive. Turns out it was a bad idea to make radium-lined water coolers
But whatt about radium dusted clothing, they have such a healthy glow too them./s
Was listening to an American history podcast (the dollop) about the radium girls. They wore uranium infused lipstick because it glowed and they thought it was cute. They licked their fingers regularly to help apply uranium dust to things.
While their male supervisors were wearing full lead suits totally for no reason and let those girls do that.
Many of them lost their jaws. There was a suit filed that they won, but every single one of those girls died before they could collect the money.
The suit led to a law establishing workers' safety rights, so it wasn't all bad. But that law was definitely written in those girls' blood.
Wikipedia link to radium girls
I think you got the right idea but that description is missing the big points.
They were painting watches and their employers told them to use their lips to make fine points on the brushes, meaning they ingested a ton of the paint. The employers told them it was harmless despite evidence to the contrary. They chose not to use other options because wiping the brush on their lips increased productivity and they were paid per watch.
I don't think you meant to imply that they were doing it for trivial reasons, but I do think mentioning that they were doing it for a job and that their employers were intentionally deceiving them is important context!
Sure, but they did also paint their nails, teeth, and lips with it for fun, so person above isn’t entirely wrong about that either.
A decent amount of safety law was written in the blood or sweat of women. The origins of fire code come from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire which manufactured garments in New York which was staffed almost entirely by women.
Not to say a lot of safety law wasn't developed because of the deaths of men but a bunch of women dying all at once due to negligence does seem to be a decently galvanizing force for society which makes it easier to get a ball rolling and women, particularly widows and family members of victims , have always been important advocates and organizers in the fight for safety legislation.
Just a small correction. They were women. Not minor female children. Calling them girls is infantilizing.
At least accordingly to this link, the trend for dial-painters was to be teenagers. Some started as early as their fourteens. It makes sense considering the 1920s, when adult women were expected to stay at home and take care of children, not to be part of the workforce. So odds are that "radium girls" is accurate, because most of them were not adult women.
Wikipedia, and the sources that Wikipedia is relying on, are also rather consistently calling them "Radium girls". This is clearly a fixed expression, that shouldn't be decomposed like you're doing.
And even if we disregard both things above (we should not), your "small correction" boils down to "I'll vomit an «ackshyually» to boss the other user around on language usage, disregarding what they say to whine about how they say it". This is simply not contributive.
Only infantile here is you
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/the-lethal-legacy-of-early-20th-century-radiation-quackery/2020/02/14/ed1fd724-37c9-11ea-bf30-ad313e4ec754_story.html
https://archive.ph/qM9aV
Radioactive jock straps put out a lot more radiation.
Anything related to health care in general, really. Keep in mind that germ theory was only invented in the late 16th century, and it was ridiculed for centuries in favour of Miasma theory. It wasn't until the mid 19th century that it started gaining legitimacy.
Okay but... I thought that was basically the point, in that if the advice survived for that long, then it is worth paying attention to at least, to consider if it might apply to a particular situation? e.g. chicken soup really is good for a cold, whether we knew the precise reasons why or not.