Lead poisoning : in its acute and chronic forms : the Goulstonian Lectures, delivered in the Royal College of Physicians, March 1891 / by Thomas Oliver.
- Thomas Oliver
- Date:
- 1891
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lead poisoning : in its acute and chronic forms : the Goulstonian Lectures, delivered in the Royal College of Physicians, March 1891 / by Thomas Oliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![males as against 251 females. Xot only is the female more sus- ceptible, but she is so at an earlier age than the male, and is more likely to suffer severely, and from such nervous accidents as epilepsy. I find tliatthe^ages at which the human female is y most susceptibje. is from eighteen to_._twe3s]Lty.r::thjee, ■fl.nrl_i.hflt in ^ -^3:enr-jrmn forty-ane-to forty-eight; and the interesting point in regard to exposure to lead is, that whilst young women suffer readily from Saturnine poisoning, recovering quickly from colic only to be more readily and severely affected on again exposing themselves, men may go on working for years, ten to. twenty, having only one or two attacks of colic, and then, after a^--jT^- e> __very lengthenedj3erioxLp.L_service, may still fall victiiiia, either to lead paralysis, or die from the effects of a kidney lesion due to the poison. It is difficult to say what length of exposure to lead is required to develop symptoms. In a fatal case of acute lead poisoning which I saw lately, the girl had only worked forty days in the factory altogether; these forty days were spread over nine weeks. The table on page 22 shows the ages of lead workers admitted into the Infirmary, over a period of five years, suffering from plumbism, and indicate the differences between the ages of males and females. Xot only is there a sexual, there is also an individual idio- syncrasy to plumbism. There is a class of women too easily affected by lead,^ but what that type is, it is impossible to say. Generally the class from which these people are taken are young girls who are practically without the comforts of a good home, many of them lead a questionable life, they expose them- selves to cold, and are frequently in a state of chronic starvation before going to the lead works, and are therefore in a fit state for rapidly breaking down under the influence of lead. Those who are careful in regard to personal cleanliness, and are well cared for at home, do not as a rule suffer. I have seen women in the lead works who have followed their occupation for twelve or twenty years, and who have seldom been away from ^ T. Oliver. Local Industries, British Association, 1889,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21211607_0039.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
