ABSTRACT: REPORTER AT LARGE about the effect of radio-activity on human beings, & about the Atomic Energy Commission’s search for the surviving dial painters, the world’s first victoms of radium poisoning. In 1915, Dr. von Sochocky originated a widely used radium-paint formula, & the same year, he & some associates founded the Radium Luminous Materials Co., & established it in a factory in Orange, N.J. The company changed its name in 1916, & became the U.S. Radium Corp. It contracted with watch manufacturers to paint their dials Teen-age girls were, for the most employed to do it on piecework bases. The girls dipped their brushes into the paint licked them into shape, each time swallowing a little radium. Early in the 1920’s, the first few mysterious cases of illness & bone injury began to occur among the dial painters. In 1924, Dr. Harrison S. Martland, the Medical Examiner of Essex County, inspected the plant, & examined stricken dial painters, & sought the advice of colleagues-among them Dr. von Sochocky, who had left the company & now teamed up with Dr. Martland. By this time nine girls had died. Tells about the discoveries made by Dr. Martland & his co-workers on how radioactive matter works inside the human body. Dr. von Sochocky died of radium injuries in 1928, at the age of 45. Tells about litigation which began in ’27, brought against the company by five injured girls who sought a quarter of a million dollars each, and about the outcome of the case.