Lead poisoning in the smelting and refining of lead.

  • Hamilton, Alice, 1869-1970.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lead poisoning in the smelting and refining of lead. 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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    DUST AND FUMES. Most of the ])lants visitotl ar(i fairly new and some are of very recent construction. The buildings of the more modern ones are large and liigh, well suppHed with natural ventilation, if indeed they are not too open, and with ample space so that there is no crowding. The introduction of machinery to take the place of hand labor is general, and there is an increasing effort to save the lead fumes, which, when they are allowed to escape into the air, are the most potent cause of lead poisoning among the workmen. Even in the old plants, dark and crowded and dirty as they are, there is some evidence of recent improvements, and in some instances the old plant is being abandoned for one of modern construction. On the whole, it is certainly true that conditions are continually improving in this industry. However, there is not one plant in which no fumes are allowed to escape, not one in which there is a complete system of hoods and exhaust ventilation. Nor is there one plant which is kept as free from dust as it might be. The majority have at least one or two inexcusably dusty departments and some plants have hardly a single clean place. In both these respects, fume prevention and dust prevention, American smelting plants leave much to be desired. Yet it is dust and fume that are responsible for the great majority of cases of industrial plumbism, and their control should be a simple matter compared to the comphcated engineering problems which have been successfully solved by smelting experts. In a refinery there are special dangers which are not encountered in a smelter, and which come from the nature of the material worked up in a refinery. To a certain extent this is clean bulUon from a smelter, and that, of course, is safe enough to handle, but many refineries work up, aside from the bullion, quantities of scrap lead and some work up nothing else. This stuff is handled much more carelessly than ore or concentrates, and as a usual thing such a refinery is a very dirty place, the most dangerous and dusty materials being shoveled and dumped without the least precaution. The mere fact that smelting is not done on so large a scale seems in the smaller refineries to lead to carelessness in the matter of fumes as well as of dust, and the only smelting furnaces found with absolutely no pro- vision for protection against fumes were in refineries. It must not be forgotten that, in addition to the evils of dust and fume, men working in lead smelters and refineries are subject to extreme heat and to rapid changes of temperature, while at the same time their work calls for great physical exertion. This is not true of all the men employed, but it is true of a far larger proportion than is the case in such industries as the making of white lead, the glazing of pottery and tiles, or the painter's trade. Smelting resembles more closely the enameling of sanitary ironware, for there also the men