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    "title": "Report, no date",
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        "Safety Light Collection",
        "Records Related to Radium Dial Painters"
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    "seq": 3,
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    "ocrText": "their universal practice to point their brushes in their mouths, we have con-\nsidored the possibility of brushes or of vehicle as a source of difficulty.\nBeeteriolorieal studies of the twolve bruahes have been nogative for anthrax, the\ndangerous bacterium somotimes occurring in hnir and bristles. The bneteria\ncultured from the brushes were Bacillus subtilis. staphyloccocue a\ngrom-nemativo, non-sugar fermenting bacillus - harmless organisms which\nmay be found normally in the mouth. Orn acacia, the usual vohicle for the lumin-\nous material, is entirely non-tozic, being frequently administered by mouth and\neven intravencusly in pharnacological proparations. We may now considor the\nconstituents of the \"Underke itsolf.\nZinc. Zinc, in the opinion of practically all recent authorition, is in itsolf\nnon- poisonous (1). So-called \"poisonous\" actions are due to the local irritant\neffects of goluble salts. zine sulphide is en insoluble salt and has nover\nbeen the cause of any kind of poisoning. It is not reasonable to mappose that\nthis salt would be readily abgorbed or, if so, that it would be toxie in the\nrelatively small quantities involved. We are, fortunately, able to instance\nadditional proof of this in the operations of the New Jorgay Zine Co.\nIn a\npart of the vorke in which zine sulphide is made the employees are exposed to it\nin larga quantities in a finely divided form. They must inhale and swallow it,\nse well as have a liberal contact with it through the sicin.\nDr. 0. K. Drinker\nhas observed these workors over some years and finds them in apod health with no\nunusual pulmonary, sicin, or digestive disturbances which might be due to local\neffects; and cortainly with no necrosis of the jan as a result of their vory ample\nexposure to sine sulphide.\nThe sine sulphide which your company employs is, to be euro, not identical\nwith that just mentioned. Its molecular state has been changed by roasting so\nthat it is photosensitive. It 19 also, we find, more insolutt than the non-\nluminous sulphide in common inorganis reagente. This would tend to diminish any\npossible local effects - of which we found none in your plant - and mitãce it\nmore difficultly soluble for the organism. Lastly, if it wore dissolved and\nabsorbed by the orgnnimm it would chenze its chemical form, becoming probably a\nchloride or eventually a phosphate, and in this form would be identical 17 ith the\nsoluble product from ordinary sine sulphide that hnd been absorbod, If moh a\nsolubility does take place, the presence of soluble zine in the organiem, even\nwhere the exposure is many tirles preater than at your plant, is harmless, as is\namply proved by the good health of the employees of the sine sulphide department\nof the New Jorgey Zine Company and by a largo goneral experience with the problems\nof zine poisoning.\nCopper. It is hardly conceivable that the minute traces of copper present\nin are sigificant as a tozão agent.\nRedium There 1. a gront deal of material in the literature on the offette\nof radium on animals and on men. In individuals worling in the menufactro of\nradium apparatus and in clinical vorkers with this substance, the important\nsymptoms of over-exposure to rediun are disturbances of the mele and female mez\norgans, skin changes, end chençes in the blood. These changes occur in persons\nwho are exposed to radium externally but not in gach a way as to be able to absor's\nany of the olement itsolf. Disturbances of menstruation in the female and storility\nin the mole are clearly recomized. The sicin changem, which vary in sevority,\nare essontially thoge demonstrated by Dr. Lehman and Itr. Roth. And in the work\nof Mottrom (2), Qudzent and Helberstendter (3), Villions (4), Pfabler (5), and"
}