[Not just for fire. The risk of production and misuse of phosphorus matches. Phosphorus necrosis, abortions and suicides during the latest half of the 1900-century].

The phosphorus match was a useful but poisonous match, used during the last half of the 1900-century. The medical consequences of the match production were far-reaching. The workers, usually women, could be affected by chronic phosphorus poisoning including necrosis in the mandible. The infected mandible had to be surgically removed if the patient should survive. In the last decades of the century the matches were used as a method for abortion and suicide. The misuse can be understood in the light of the widespread social structural changes at the time. With the right dosage, the heads of the matches could be used for abortion but many women died of acute phosphorus poisoning. An extensive debate was going on for decades in the parliament before the production of the phosphorus matches was forbidden in 1901.