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LEAD CASTING, SHOWING LEAD POT IN A SMELTER DANGER OF POISONING IS FROM BREATHING LEAD OXIDE, FUMES AND DUST. THE WORKER IN THIS PICTURE NOW LOSES ON AN AVERAGE ONE DAY A WEEK ON ACCOUNT OF CHRONIC LEAD POISONING

LEAD POISONING IN NEW YORK CITY1

EDWARD EWING PRATT

New York State Factory Investigating Commission.

It has often been said that, compared with foreign countries, there has been and is very little lead poisoning in the United States. Recent investigations, however, throw considerable doubt upon these conclusions. The Illinois commission, during the years 1908, 1909, and 1910, found five hundred and seventy-eight cases of lead poisoning in that state alone. Last fall a hasty study of lead poisoning in New York City revealed three hundred and seventysix cases which had occurred during the years 1909, 1910, and 1911. And during the year 1911 alone there were found one hundred and twenty-one cases. This study was based largely upon hospital records, and therefore includes only the more serious cases; a vast number of less serious ones must have been treated in dispensaries and by private physicians. These facts are startling when we think that in England during 1910 there were only five hundred and five cases. In a single year New York City had one hundred and twenty-one cases,-all England five hundred and five.

These cases of lead poisoning were not confined to any one trade or industry, but were scattered through a considerable number. The industries represented, in which the victims had been employed, were the following; white-lead, lead-acetate, lead-oxid, dry colors, use of lead as a hardening agent, scaling paint on battleships, shipcalking, diamond-polishing, printing, carpentering, plumbing, tinsmithing, and painting.

A canvass of the hospitals in New York City was made, and all the cases of lead poisoning or plumbism which they had treated during the last three years were selected. Names and addresses of the persons and any other available facts were taken from the hospital records. These records were lamentably lacking in everything that 'The facts given herewith are taken from a study made last fall and winter, by the writer, with the cooperation of a number of his students, and submitted to the N. Y. State Factory Investigating Commission.

would interest anyone who wished to make a study of lead poisoning and its causes. In only two hospitals in Greater New York were occupations specified more accurately than "laborer", or "painter", and in these two exceptional instances the information was not more detailed than the statement, "lead worker", "molder", "carriage painter", etc. No hospital recorded where the victims had worked, or under what conditions. However, with these names and addresses, and a few which were furnished by the New York State Department of Labor, the labor unions, the board of health, and several employers, the men themselves who had been leaded were visited.

It was not always easy to find the people we wanted, for, in addition to the difficulties due to false addresses, which are habitually given at hospitals, we found it difficult to locate Poles, Slavs, Russians, Lithuanians, Italians, and others of our recent immigrants. I remember searching for a man named John Sichosk, whose name had been sent in by the department of labor. At the address given, only the blankest faces answered my inquiry for John Sichosk. In broken English one of the men explained that he knew no one by that name. As a last resort I showed the record card with the typewritten name. The man's face lighted up at once, "Oh! John Sichosky! Sure, he live upstairs." He was there all right, and before the afternoon was over John had taken me to five others who had been leaded in the same factory.

A careful study was made of each case. The facts, not only about the man's last job, but concerning others as far back as he could remember, were ascertained. As far as possible the maternal history of the wife was obtained, the personal habits of the worker, and the precautions or lack of precautions in the factory. One hundred and nine cases, in all, were intensively studied in this way. The results are interesting, even if the small number of cases somewhat detracts from their value. In general, these results are similar to the results of studies made abroad.

Practically all the various forms of lead poisoning were found, ranging from light attacks of colic to death. Among these cases were several of wrist-drop and paralysis. Many of the workers had had recurring attacks and had been disabled for considerable periods, varying from a few days to almost a year. About half of the men were comparatively young; in fact, fifty of the one hundred and nine were actually less than thirty-five years of age, and

almost one hundred were less than fifty-five years of age when they became leaded.

Economists of the old school have always held that men's wages increase with the dangers and risks of their employment. This is certainly not true of lead workers. Over half of the workers studied (fifty-eight) were earning less than $16.00 per week; a quarter (twenty-three) were earning less than $12.00; and over a tenth (thirteen) were actually earning less than $10.00. Strangely enough, the most dangerous of all the industries paid the lowest wages. In the white-lead industry not a single man was earning over $14.00 per week, and many of them were earning less than $10.00. At these low rates one would imagine that the total loss of wages due to lead poisoning would be comparatively small. It is not surprising, therefore, that most of the losses were of small amounts, and that fifty-nine of the one hundred and nine men lost less than $150 each. But it is a surprising fact that some of these workers lost larger sums, seven men actually losing over $1,000 each.

Some very interesting facts were brought out in the analysis of conditions in the factories and workshops. Sixty-two of the one hundred and nine workers ate in the same room where they worked; twenty-two never washed before eating and forty-five washed only in cold water; seventy-three, or almost three-fourths, were never given oral instructions of any kind as to the dangers of their work or as to methods of preventing lead poisoning; seventy-six men never saw any posted instructions where they worked. It is usually admitted that men addicted to alcohol are more liable to contract lead poisoning, as they are to succumb to most other diseases. Employers delight to say that it is only the "hard drinkers" who are ever troubled by lead. But only six of the one hundred and nine men were found to use alcohol to excess; sixty-five were moderate drinkers; and thirty-one were teetotalers. These facts point out and emphasize the importance of the problem, right here and now in this country, and the need of prevention, the first steps in which have evidently not been taken by the majority of employers.

Of the one hundred and nine cases studied, seventy-nine persons were married, among them forty men whose wives had been pregnant while their husbands were employed at lead work. In all there had been one hundred and fifty-seven conceptions among these forty

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