[Dngrsone]

As I (re)read The Radium Girls, I think about our theme for the month (Doomed to repeat it: History) and what springs to mind are the many lies, distortions, and misinformation promulgated by both the tobacco and oil industries.

It also makes me think about some of the Silicone Valley companies: Facebook, Google, et al, and how they are so insidiously invading and redefining privacy online.

Which brings me to thoughts about the telecomunications industry and their collusion in reaping profits at the expense of thier customer-base.

Of course, there are plenty of science-fiction authors who have thought about the many ways that corporate interests can and likely will perpetrate fraud and unecessary death once they get into space for tourism, asteroid mining or whatever.

So my thought is this: a company may start out with the very best of intentions, and may even be the greatest employer ever, taking care of their employees and doing their best to minimize bad things happening to the customers, the environment, etc. However, I think that there is a point in a company's growth where all those good intentions are left behind.

I have worked for a couple different concerns where this point has been reached: early on, the original owners were still in charge and bonus pay was great, benefits were great, company picnics held... then the boss retires, steps back, or is bought out. The bean-counters take over, and suddenly the pay raises scale back. Bonuses are skimpy. Company picnics are reduced to hamburgers and hotdogs, then cheap pizza parties, then gone altogether.

Google is famous for the "Don't Be Evil" motto in its code of conduct. Then came along Alphabet, which made its motto "Do the Right Thing". While that sounds good, one has to wonder--what is the right thing? And is this the right thing for the customer, the general public, or the shareholder? Of course, the lawyers in the audience are also asking for definitions of 'Evil' and rightly so, which only sustains my point.

Anyway, back to the book. Here is where I learned that radium mimics calcium, and has a tendency to concentrate in bone when ingested. As a junior scientist, I like and wish there more little tidbits like this, but they are definitely tangential to the story which is all about what happens when a good thing turns out to not be so much and the natural tendency of a business to prefer profit over the welfare of employees or the general public.

What continually strikes me when I read these kinds of books is the absolute backwardness of medicine of the era. I mean, I realize that this was a hundred years ago, but I kind of grew up being taught that in the twentieth century, the art of medicine was at its height, and yes, in the years since my childhood it has grown even more advanced. Yet I wonder what practices are routine today will be regarded as downright barbaric fifty or a hundred years from now.

Anyhow, I am going to skip that rabbithole, and try to concentrate on the book at hand.

I cursed out loud when I read about how the Radium Dial Company kidnapped Margaret Looney, let her die alone and then conducted an illicit autopsy in order to remove evidence. They almost got away with stealing the body away altogether, too. Would they have erased any proof of her ever working for them, I wonder, like the Reeds denied being there with Catherine and the other girls?

The scenes that will linger with me the longest (as they have lingered with me since the first time I read this book) are the glowing ones: Edna Hoffman, when walking through a dark room, saw the radiant ghost of herself in the mirror; the body of Mollie Maggia illuminating her coffin; Catherine Donohue glowing in her bed, like a (barely) living x-ray.