Teleky has described cases of lead poisoning in which _silk thread_ was
weighted with acetate of lead. As a consequence a number of women engaged
in sewing on fringes with the thread suffered. The English factory
inspectors’ reports describe cases from manipulating _yarn dyed with
chromate of lead_.[7]
_Chromate of lead_ and _white lead_ are used in colouring oil-cloth,
artificial flowers, paper, rubber goods, pencils, penholders, socks,
sealing-wax, candles, and stamps.
USE OF LEAD IN THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
Lead poisoning has been frequently observed in such branches of the
chemical industry as require large leaden or lead-lined vessels and
pipes: the persons affected are principally those engaged in lead burning.
Risk is considerable in manufacture of lead acetate. The most dangerous
processes are drying and packing the crystals.
MANUFACTURE OF ELECTRIC ACCUMULATORS
The manufacture of accumulators begins with the casting of lead plates,
which are then polished and dressed. Next follows ‘pasting,’ that is,
smearing the negative plate with a paste of litharge, the positive plate
being ‘formed’ by having an electric current passed through so that the
lead is converted into spongy peroxide. The wooden boxes in which the
plates are assembled are lead-lined.
The most dangerous processes are casting, wire-brushing, and pasting—the
latter especially when done by hand.
In the years 1908 and 1909 among about 761 workers employed in the
accumulator factories of Cologne there were fifty-six cases of lead colic
and seventy-nine of gastric and intestinal catarrh. Further figures
for German accumulator works show that in the two largest accumulator
factories in the district of Potsdam employing 142 workers there were
fifteen cases in 1904. In Great Britain, in the ten years 1900-1909, 285
cases were reported—an average of about thirty a year.
THE CERAMIC INDUSTRY
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