How hazardous is a..... Radium dial?

[cruvon]

Also those known to have been badly affected by radium were factory workers who painted radium dials, that too because they possibly innocently ingested some of it.

The Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with glow-in-the-dark paint at the United States Radium factory in Orange, New Jersey around 1917. The women, who had been told the paint was harmless, ingested deadly amounts of radium by licking their paintbrushes to give them a fine point; some also painted their fingernails and teeth with the glowing substance.
Five of the women challenged their employer in a case that established the right of individual workers who contract occupational diseases to sue their employers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls



And a bit about Radium, guess the glow/radiation level will depend on the isotope of Radium used as well as Phosphorous content, looks like Ra-266 was commonly used on watches

The propensity for internalized radium to localize in bone has long been recognized. For example, radium
watch dial painters in the 1920s and 30s subsequently developed bone cancers and leukemias as a result of
ingesting the radium-266 (226Ra)-containing paint when “twirling” their paint brush tips to a fine point in their
mouths. Importantly, 226Ra has a much longer half-life, 1,600 years, than 223Ra, a critically important factor
related to its carcinogenecity in bone.

http://nrc-stp.ornl.gov/asletters/program/sp13002.pdf

Radium-226, the most common isotope, is an alpha emitter, with accompanying gamma radiation, and has a half-life of about 1600 years. Radium-228, is principally a beta emitter and has a half-life of 5.76 years. Radium-224, an alpha emitter, has a half life of 3.66 days.

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/radium.html
and Tritium

Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/radionuclides/tritium.html