Читать книгу Industrial Poisoning from Fumes, Gases and Poisons of Manufacturing Processes - Josef Rambousek - Страница 7

The chemical industry offers naturally a wide field for the occurrence of industrial poisoning. Daily contact with the actual poisonous substances to be prepared, used, stored, and despatched in large quantity gives opportunity for either acute or chronic poisoning—in the former case from sudden accidental entrance into the system of fairly large doses, as the result of defective or careless manipulation, and, in the latter, constant gradual absorption (often unsuspected) of the poison in small amount.

The industry, however, can take credit for the way in which incidence of industrial poisoning has been kept down in view of the magnitude and variety of the risks which often threaten. This is attributable to the comprehensive hygienic measures enforced in large chemical works keeping abreast of modern advance in technical knowledge. A section of this book deals with the principles underlying these measures. Nevertheless, despite all regulations, risk of poisoning cannot be wholly banished. Again and again accidents and illness occur for which industrial poisoning is responsible. Wholly to prevent this is as impossible as entirely to prevent accidents by mechanical guarding of machinery.

Owing to the unknown sources of danger, successful measures to ward it off are often difficult. The rapid advance of this branch of industry, the constant development of new processes and reactions, the frequent discovery of new materials (with properties at first unknown, and for a long time insufficiently understood, but nevertheless indispensable), constantly give rise to new dangers and possibilities of danger, of which an accident or some disease with hitherto unknown symptoms is the first indication. Further, even when the dangerous effects are recognised, there may often be difficulty in devising appropriate precautions, as circumstances may prevent immediate recognition of the action of the poison. We cannot always tell, for instance, with the substances used or produced in the processes, which is responsible for the poisoning, because, not infrequently, the substances in question are not chemically pure, but may be either raw products, bye-products, &c., producing mixtures of different bodies or liberating different chemical compounds as impurities.

Hence difficulty often arises in the strict scientific explanation of particular cases of poisoning, and, in a text-book such as this, difficulty also of description. A rather full treatment of the technical processes may make the task easier and help to give a connected picture of the risks of poisoning in the chemical industry. Such a procedure may be especially useful to readers insufficiently acquainted with chemical technology.

We are indebted to Leymann1 and Grandhomme2 especially for knowledge of incidence of industrial poisoning in this industry. The statistical data furnished by them are the most important proof that poisoning, at any rate in large factories, is not of very frequent occurrence.

Leymann’s statistics relate to a large modern works in which the number employed during the twenty-three years of observation increased from 640 in the year 1891 to 1562 in 1904, giving an average of about 1000 yearly, one-half of whom might properly be defined as ‘chemical workers.’ The factory is concerned in the manufacture of sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids, alkali, bichromates, aniline, trinitro-phenol, bleaching powder, organic chlorine compounds, and potassium permanganate.

These statistics are usefully complemented by those of Grandhomme drawn from the colour works at Höchst a-M. This large aniline works employs from 2600 to 2700 workers; the raw materials are principally benzene and its homologues, naphthalene and anthracene. The manufacture includes the production of coal-tar colours, nitro- and dinitro-benzene, aniline, rosaniline, fuchsine, and other aniline colours, and finally such pharmaceutical preparations as antipyrin, dermatol, sanoform, &c. Of the 2700 employed, 1400 are chemical workers and the remainder labourers.

These two series of statistics based on exact observations and covering allied chemical manufacture are taken together. They seek to give the answer to the question—How many and what industrial poisonings are found?

The figures of Leymann (on an average of 1000 workers employed per annum) show 285 cases of poisoning reported between the years 1881 and 1904. Of these 275 were caused by aniline, toluidine, nitro- and dinitro-benzene, nitrophenol, nitrochloro and dinitrochloro benzene. Three were fatal and several involved lengthy invalidity (from 30 to 134 days, owing to secondary pneumonia). Included further are one severe case of chrome (bichromate) poisoning (with nephritis as a sequela), five cases of lead poisoning, three of chlorine, and one of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. In the Höchst a-M. factory (employing about 2500 workers) there were, in the ten years 1883-92, only 129 cases of poisoning, of which 109 were due to aniline. Later figures for the years 1893-5 showed 122 cases, of which 43 were due to aniline and 76 to lead (contracted mostly in the nitrating house). Grandhomme mentions further hyperidrosis among persons employed on solutions of calcium chloride, injury to health from inhalation of methyl iodide vapour in the antipyrin department, a fatal case of benzene poisoning (entering an empty vessel in which materials had previously been extracted with benzene), and finally ulceration and perforation of the septum of the nose in several chrome workers.

The number of severe cases is not large, but it must be remembered that the factories to which the figures relate are in every respect models of their kind, amply provided with safety appliances and arrangements for the welfare of the workers. The relatively small amount of poisoning is to be attributed without doubt to the precautionary measures taken. Further, in the statistics referred to only those cases are included in which the symptoms were definite, or so severe as to necessitate medical treatment. Absorption of the poison in small amount without producing characteristic symptoms, as is often the case with irritating or corrosive fumes, and such as involve only temporary indisposition, are not included. Leymann himself refers to this when dealing with illness observed in the mineral acid department (especially sulphuric acid), and calls attention to the frequency of affections of the respiratory organs among the persons employed, attributing them rightly to the irritating and corrosive effect of the acid vapour. Elsewhere he refers to the frequency of digestive disturbance among persons coming into contact with sodium sulphide, and thinks that this may be due to the action of sulphuretted hydrogen gas.

Nevertheless, the effect of industrial poisons on the health of workers in chemical factories ought on no account to be made light of. The admirable results cited are due to a proper recognition of the danger, with consequent care to guard against it. Not only have Grandhomme and Leymann[A] rendered great services by their work, but the firms in question also, by allowing such full and careful inquiries to be undertaken and published.