wives. There were born to the persons one hundred and forty-four children, thirty-nine of whom died in the first year, and two in the second. The cause of death in many cases was malnutrition and convulsions. In addition, there were four still-births and eight miscarriages; and the latter figures understate the facts, as our information on this point is not full nor very accurate. The effect upon reproduction has long been noted. Some interesting cases have come to my attention: 1. A young Hungarian came to this country in 1904. He worked in a wire mill, where the wire is tempered and hardened by being passed through a bath of molten lead. The lead is uncovered, and vapors and oxids fill the air. He married in 1909. In the same year his wife miscarried at the end of seven months. Early in 1910 a second child was born but died of convulsions within two weeks. About this time the husband had a severe attack of lead poisoning and was given another job. In January of this year the wife gave birth at full term to a normal child. 2. A Barbadoes negro came to the United States in 1908. He was married and had a little daughter, at that time two years of age. He found work in a lead factory handling and packing sugar of lead, or lead acetate. The following year his wife miscarried at the end of seven months. A year later a child was born at full term, but died in convulsions when six months old. The curious part of this case is that the worker himself was unaffected until a few months ago and until after the birth last referred to. 3. James Scott was a printer for over forty years and died of lead poisoning. He was married in 1868. Of twelve births six children survived, four died from various causes during their first year, there was one still-birth and one miscarriage. 4. Alexander Joronsky, a Pole, came to this country in 1891. After having various unskilled jobs, he found employment as a stripper in a big white-lead factory. During his period of employment as a stripper his wife gave birth to four children; one of these was still-born, and the others lived four days, three days, and one day respectively. 5. A Hungarian painter, who came to this country in 1893, presents an interesting case. Five of his ten children died within a year of their birth and his wife has had two miscarriages. The man himself, however, had his first attack very recently. The investigation of hospital cases at once opened up numerous others, and also gave us clues to factories where there were lead processes of which we did not know. The next step in the investigation, therefore, was the inspection of factories. One of the first cases which came to our attention was a pathetic case of double wrist-drop. The victim, a man of middle age, had worked in a magneto factory. It was a big place, with many hun DUST COLLECTORS IN A LEAD PLANT CLOTH BAGS PERMIT AIR FROM EXHAUSTS TO PASS THROUGH WHILE RETAIN- DATE PLANTS THE BAGS ARE SHAKEN BY A MECHANICAL EMPTYING A RED-LEAD FURNACE WHEN OXIDIZED IN FURNACES THE LEAD IS RAKED OUT INTO CARS. IN dreds of employees, but the lead process was carried on exclusively in one small room, a sort of lean-to at the rear of the factory and a little below the level of the ground. Here were located five lead pots, the temperature of which varied from 800 to 1500 degrees. These pots, when inspected, were covered by hoods leading to a chimney, but were not provided with any blower attachment. The roof was raised slightly and a fan at one end gave a fairly good air circulation. In the process preceding the so-called "hardening", bars of steel are bent into the horseshoe shape of a magnet. They are then brought into the hardening room and immersed in a bath of molten lead. There they remain for a specified length of time, when they are removed and suddenly immersed in water. After cooling they are stacked up, one above the other, and are rubbed down with sandpaper to remove any particles of lead that remain. This process, at the time when the inspection was made, had been in operation for less than a year and nine men were employed at it. I found seven cases of lead poisoning; one had resulted in death, and one in double wrist-drop; others had necessitated long periods of unemployment. A wire mill carried on a similar process. Here the tempering and hardening is done by passing the wire slowly through a bath of molten lead. The wire is wound on huge spools revolving slowly, and is then wound onto another reel. The room is habitually full of smoke, gas, and fumes, and the men work intolerable hours,two shifts of twelve hours each, with no time for meals. They have to snatch what they eat,-because the lead positively cannot be cooled off. In both of these processes the danger comes, I believe, not from the fumes of molten lead, but rather from the particles of lead oxid which probably fill the air. In both cases the skimmings from the lead pots are brushed carelessly aside and allowed to fall upon the floor, or to accumulate in piles beside the pots. Some of you will wonder how a girl working in an embroidery factory can be poisoned by lead. You will doubtless scoff at the possibility of a worker on embroidery contracting lead poisoning. But I have found two such cases. The designs to be embroidered are stenciled on cloth. This is usually done with a mixture of chalk and talcum powder. One resourceful employer, however, observing the way in which the chalk rubbed off, substituted dry white lead, which clings more tenaciously. The girls who used it were ignorant of its poisonous character and handled it as carelessly as they had handled the chalk. They pounded it into the stencils and the dust rose in their faces and the lead covered their hands. Little wonder they got lead poisoning. The use of lead for this purpose is common. Another case, which is individually the most pathetic I have seen, is that of William O'Connell. O'Connell has now been out of work for about eleven months and is likely to remain so, as he is totally incapacitated. The interesting and exasperating thing about it is that he is our employee,-speaking collectively, because O'Connell was in the employ of the United States government, immediately under the Navy Department and a worker in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where his job was that of "scaling" in the double bottoms. Battleships are provided nowadays with double bottoms, a shell which envelops the entire keel of the ship; between these bottoms is a space of about two and one-half feet, which is divided into compartments of from four to six feet square. In order to prevent rust these double bottoms are painted with red oxid of lead, sometimes to a thickness of one-fourth of an inch. The process of scaling consists of scraping off the red oxid paint with an automatic compressed-air chisel called a "hammer". When in operation this hammer throws a spurt of dust up into the faces of the workmen, who wear goggles but no respirators. Sometimes several men work in one small compartment, and they tell me that it is almost impossible to see the electric bulbs at their elbows. "And then when the air hose breaks, you ought to see the place!" one of the men remarked. Think of working in such a place for eight hours a day! It is any wonder that, out of a squad which averaged about fifty men, we found twenty cases of severe lead poisoning, including two deaths and O'Connell, who is totally incapacitated? And these men have no washing facilities, they wear no respirators, there is no exhaust, there are no accessible eating facilities, there is no medical inspection, and they get no compensation. The government gives no compensation for lead poisoning because, technically, it is not an accident,-which is true, for under the circumstances it is a dead certainty. Yet the surgeon of the post asked me,-a layman, "Why! is that work dangerous?" Other industries contributed their quotas of lead poisoning cases. |