Archives of the Public Health Laboratory of the University of Manchester / Edited by A. Sheridan Delépine. Vol. 1.
- University of Manchester
- Date:
- 1906
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Archives of the Public Health Laboratory of the University of Manchester / Edited by A. Sheridan Delépine. Vol. 1. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
19/474 page 7
![and a diminution of the giant cells and thickening of the connective tissue. The early changes, i.e., increase of leucoblasts, indicate a reaction on the part of the marrow for the purpose of dealing with the poison. As the poisoning becomes more severe and obtains the upper hand, the marrow degenerates rapidly and its cellular structure disappears, just as happens in many other poisonings and cachectic conditions. Stockman and Charteris did not find any increase in the thickness of the bone.] Industrial Phosphorus Poisoning-. Phosphorus poisoning in match- makers differs considerably from acute phosphorus poisoning. It occurs under two forms—(1) in which the symptoms are more or less constitutional, and (2) local. To the first form French physicians have given the name of phosphorisme. Magitot depicted the malady as he observed it among the match makers at Pantin-Aubervilliers, near Paris, and Arnaud as he saw it in Marseilles. As a consequence of lengthened exposure to phosphorus fumes these writers maintain that there is induced, especially in female workers, a constitutional state characterised by anaemia, a yellow tint of the skin, loss of appetite, albuminuria, dyspepsia and headache followed by progressive emaciation. Although Arnaud+ found albuminuria present in fully 70 per cent, of his cases of phosphorisme he did not find that the patients became ultimately the subjects of Bright's disease. Match makers have often an unpleasant garlicky odour about them which is mostly given off in the breath and not from the clothes they wear, for it is still present after the workers have had a bath and changed their raiment. One of the paths of elimination of phosphorus from the body is the lungs, and other paths equally important are the kidneys and skin. The odour of the urine in phosphorisme may at times be very unpleasant. The presence of albumin in the urine is explained by the fact of the kidneys being channels of elimination of phosphorus. Albuminuria can be produced experimentally in animals 48 hours after the introduction of phosphorus into the system. It has to be borne in mind that the particular channel by which the poison is introduced into the body is not without some influence in determining what organs shall suffer most. When phosphorus enters by the stomach the liver is the organ first and most profoundly affected; when administered hypo- dermically the kidneys are the first to suffer, but since in match makers the poisonous fumes are absorbed by the lungs the phosphorus passes into the blood and is eliminated by the breath and kidneys. Falck has described a cerebro- spinal form of phosphorisme, but it cannot be said that there is any decided clinical type. The commonest nervous symptoms are disorders of sensation, e.g., cutaneous or muscular hypersesthesia, headache, pain in the spine, arms, and legs, accompanied by muscular weakness. Instead of hypersesthesia there may be anaesthesia or loss of sensation in the lower extremities. Opinion is divided as to whether pregnant females who are the subjects of phosphorisme exhibit a greater tendency to miscarry than healthy women employed in other occupations. Arnaud did not find that the match makers of Marseilles aborted in an unusually large proportion, a circumstance which -J-The Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, December, 1903, p. 205. X Etudes sur le Phosphore et le Phosphorisme Professionel.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2153553x_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
