A truly lovely story here:
The French found the odor of [the original fricton-matches] so repellent that in 1830 a Paris chemist, Charles Sauria, reformulated a combustion compound based on phosphorus. [But] Dr. Saura ... but unwittingly ushered in a near epidemic of a deadly disease known as "phossy jaw." Phosphorus was highly poisonous. Phosphorus matches were being manufactured in large quantitiles. Hundreds of factory workers developed phossy jaw, a necrosis that poisons the body's bones, especially those of the jaw. Babies sucking on match heads developed the syndrome, which caused infant skeletal deformities. And scraping the heads off a single pack of matches yield enough phosphorus to commit suicide or murder; both events were reported.
[Finally,] the first nonpoisonous match was introduced in 1911 by the Diamond Match Comapany. ... And as a humanitarian gesture, which won public commendation from President Taft, Diamond forfeited patent rights, allowing rival companies to introduce nonpoisonous matches. The company later won a prestigious for the elimination of an occupational disease.
Diamond simulateously solved another problem. The Sauria formula had a very low ignition point and lit at the slightest friction; many fires were ignited by rats gnawing on match heads at night. The new Diamond compound had a much higher ignition point and a taste entirely unattractive to rats.
