654
I,YD U S T R I A L A N D ENGINEERIXG C H E X I S T R Y
Vol. 17, No. 6
NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE A. C. S. Committee Reports COMMITTEE ON OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES I N CHEMICAL TRADES
[ABSTRACT]' The committee stressed the importance of chemical manufacturers keeping themselves informed on the hazards involved in the manufacture of their particular line of goods, and expressed the belief that they should always have on hand a good reference book on vocational hygiene and occupational diseases for their employees to read. It is likewise important for chemical manufacturers to establish better contacts with state health departments and state industrial hygiene boards. An exhaustive resume of the literature on this subject was given. I n connection with occupational disease compensation, it was suggested that the publications on this subject be carefully examined so that additional items may be included in the list of diseases for which compensation is now given. The methods in use for the care of trivial diseases were reviewed and the importance of compensation boards giving more careful consideration to the question of returning the injured worker t o some sort of employment as soon as it is safe to do so, and pending complete recovery, was urged. It is held that the mental stimulation is greater when a person is engaged a t regular work. In connection with research on the incidence of illness, it was found that the death rate from accidental causes among industrial workers is about two and one-half times that for the nonindustrial group. It is believed that the number of immediate deaths is not large from hazards inherent t o exposure to certain industrial poisons, but that the indirect effects can be noted in the curtailed efficiency of workers in these trades, in long periods of illness and disability. More attention was given to the literature on lead poisoning than t o any other one subject, but the committee made no general deductions therefrom. A survey of all the New York State bleaching powder factories, which make more bleaching powder than all the rest of the United States, showed that this industry has gone back to the old process which was introduced into this country in 1879, and which called forth legislation in England. The literature on the use of chlorine for respiratory disorders was also reviewed, as was also that on the after-effects of war gases and carbon monoxide poisoning. The importance of employing devices such as the pulmotor for artificial respiration in electric shock and gas poisoning was brought out, as was also the need of issuing new instructions to the public on the subject of accidents from electricity. A case of hypersensitiveness to carbon tetrachloride was reported. Another report showed that hexamethyleneamine poisoned sixty employees in a Cambridge, Mass., rubber factory. During the past two winters eighty-six cases of irritation of the skin from dyed furs were discovered in the department of dermatology of St. Bartholomews Hospital, London. The second report of the subcommittee on benzol of the committee on industrial poisons, National Safety Council, Chemical Section, confirms the- previous view held by the committee that benzol poisoning is a very real industrial hazard. According to the correspondent of the Journal of the American Medical Association a t Bucharest, Roumania, there came into force on July 1, 1924, a law prohibiting the use of both white and yellow phosphorus in the manufacture of matches. This new law is the result of repeated recommendations by the workmen's insurance office, which has under its control the lifetime care of hundreds of workmen incapacitated by working with phosphorus. The mercury hazard of the mirror industry has nowe been replaced by a silver nitrate danger. A study of nickel, with particular reference t o establishing the position of this element and its compounds with regard to its effect on living material from the lowest forms through to man, showed that the danger from this source is very remote. It is believed by a committee appointed by the American Medical Association to study this ques1 Mimeographed copies of the complete report may be procured for fifty cents upon application t o Dr C L Parsons, 1709 G St , N 17 , Washington, D C.
tion that a large portion of the accidents from zinc stearate has been due to improper containers. The question of exposure to high temperatures and a t various humidities also received attention, as did the problem of heart diseases in industry, and the study of fatigue, the theories on which have undergone some revision in recent years. The National Committee for the prevention of blindness, in the report of its findings in a two-year study of eye hazards in industry, points out that the prevention of accidents is a moral and economic obligation of the state as well as of industrial employers, that safety cannot be legislated in a n industrial plant, and that i t is futile t o expect certain employers to consider seriously the prevention of accidents, etc., if the state gives little attention to these matters. The New York Department of Labor was commended on its method of disseminadng information on industrial hygiene matters by sending out brochures to all who may possibly be interested. The committee is of the opinon that each chemical concern will find it a very profitable investment t o issue booklets of this type which will tell an employee at the very beginning that he is working in a more or less dangerous trade. The committee expressed itself as pleased to note that in our colleges more stress is being placed upon the hygienic aspects of the chemical industry. Finally, the committee recommended that better contacts be established with organizations that have to do with industrial health problems, and that a t least one member of the committee SOCIETY a t internashould represent the AMERICAN CHEMICAL tional congresses or meetings where American chemists participate. The committee renewed its request for a section on Occupational Diseases and Vocational Hygiene in Chemical Abstracts. L. W,FBTZBR, Chairman G. P. ADAMSON EDWARD BARTOW H. K . BENSON M. I,. CROSSLY
H. H. Dow
F. R. ELDRED EUAS ELVOVE E. K. STRACHAN A. H. WHITG
.............. COMMITTEE ON STANDARD APPARATUS
During the year 1924-25 the committee has continued to work for the general adoption of previously published' recommendations in regard to the elimination of unnecessary items in lists of apparatus. Five apparatus catalogs issued or in press are in substantial agreement with the recommendations of the committee. The schedules of the General Supply Committee which provide for the Federal Departments in Washington have been revised to agree with the list of the AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY committee. Specifications prepared for the Federal Specifications Board are examined to see that they do not call for apparatus not regularly listed. The committee is cooperating with other committees in a revision of specifications for laboratory thermometers that will eliminate slight differences now existing between several sets of specifications that have been published. There is still much to be done in the way of standardization of dimensions of the items retained, and further elimination is probably possible and desirable. M'. D. COLLINS, Chairman W. A. BOUGHTON H. E. HOWE 1
F. W. SYITHER G . C. SPENCER H. H. WILLARD
THISJOURNAL, lS, 1070 (1921); 14, 654, 738'(1922).
Organic Papers for Los Angeles Meeting The last date for receiving titles and abstracts of papers for presentation before the Organic Division of the American Chemical Society a t the Los Angeles meeting will be Tuesday, June 7 . -[FRANK C. WHITMORE,Secretary, Xorthwestern University, Evanston, Ill. 1
