phossy jawn.
/ˌfɒsɪ ˈdʒɔː/, U.S. /ˈfɔsi ˈdʒɔ/, /ˈfɑsi ˈdʒɑ/ Medicine (originally colloquial). Now historical.
Necrosis of the upper or lower jawbone (maxilla or mandible), often accompanied by osteomyelitis, caused by exposure to white phosphorus in workers engaged in the manufacture of matches. Also called phosphorus necrosis.
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the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > disorders caused by poisons > [noun] > by phosphorus
phosphorus necrosis1869
phossy jaw1889
phosphorism1890
phos1892
the world > health and disease > ill health > a disease > diseases of tissue > [noun] > alteration of tissue > necrosis > types of
fever sore1731
white gangrene1753
hospital ulcer1799
hospital gangrene1813
mildew-mortification1817
caseation1868
phosphorus necrosis1869
gaseous gangrene1882
coagulation necrosis1883
phossy jaw1889
phos1892
gas gangrene1896
1889 Pall Mall Gaz. 4 Apr. 2/3 The public knows nothing of the ‘fossy jaw’ which is one of the familiar dangers of life to the East-end match girl.
1893 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 1 Apr. 706/1 The match girls' ‘leprosy’ and phossy jaw demand our attention.
1897 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. II. 928 The work people suffer from necrosis of the bone, sometimes called in this country ‘phossy jaw’ and in France ‘mal chimique’... The ‘mixers’ and ‘dippers’ are particularly liable to suffer from ‘phossy jaw’.
1910 J. Addams Twenty Years at Hull-House iv. 81 The low wages that were reported at the meeting, the phossy jaw which was described and occasionally exhibited, the appearance of the [match] girls themselves I did not..connect with what was called the labor movement.
1949 H. W. C. Vines Green's Man. Pathol. (ed. 17) xii. 313 In chronic phosphorus poisoning there is cachexia and the characteristic lesion of ‘phossy jaw.’
1994 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 6 Oct. 36/1 She was increasingly drawn to identifying the sources of industrial diseases, including carbon monoxide poisoning and ‘phossy jaw’, which was connected to the use of white phosphorus in match factories.
2004 Jrnl. Oral & Maxillofacial Surg. 62 1563/2 The bony pathoses seen in the jaws secondary to bisphosphonate therapy may have analogous findings to the historical disease of phossy jaw.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1889