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The girls and women who toiled in poorly ventilated factories churning out the enormously popular product were sometimes exposed to so much phosphorus vapor that they contracted “phossy jaw,” a horrifying condition in which their gums receded, their teeth fell out and their jawbones dissolved.

The story teems with anguish for these “small ghosts,” like a girl with a disfiguring necrosis called “phossy jaw,” from working around phosphorus in a matchstick factory.

In “Match Girl,” the speaker asks, of her little sister, But how can someone younger than me have osteoporosis, and sit googling up a substance that might help it, or give her phossy jaw?

But I’d be entirely outraged if a match manufacturer outsourced production to somewhere where child labour was being used and they didn’t check to make sure that Phossy Jaw wasn’t going to be an issue.

What is that fellow who writes about phossy jaw still hanging round here for?