Lead poisoning and lead absorption : $b The symptoms, pathology and prevention, with special reference to their industrial origin, and an account of the principal processes involving riskLegge, Thomas Morison, Sir
Science
Lead poisoning and lead absorption : $b The symptoms, pathology and prevention, with special reference to their industrial origin, and an account of the principal processes involving risk
Legge, Thomas Morison, Sir
Lead poisoning
Portions of the organs, brain, kidney, liver, and spleen, were examined
histologically, stained in the ordinary way with hæmatoxylin and eosin.
In the brain the same marked microscopical hæmorrhages were observed
as described in the previous case, and in addition many more areas of
old fibroid scars, very minute, but apparently corresponding to earlier
minute hæmorrhages. The kidney showed definite interstitial hæmorrhage
(see Plate III., Fig. 2), as did the liver and spleen.
A portion of the brain was further submitted to chemical examination,
and 0·0014 gramme of lead was determined as present.
The importance of this confirmatory evidence is undoubted, as the
presence of the capillary hæmorrhage existing in the tissues of a
person dying under suspicious circumstances when employed in a lead
process is confirmed by the chemical determination of lead in the
tissues.
The following tables, arranged under three headings, give some of the
experimental results obtained by submitting animals to the effect of
compounds of lead.
Table XI. gives the inoculation experiments.
The materials used in these experiments were those used in the
inhalation and feeding experiments. The experiments are also arranged
in such a manner that each series is a control one of the other.
The amount of substance used for the inoculation gives some rough idea
of the dose required to produce poisoning in an animal; but even this
question of dose in absolute quantities, administered hypodermically,
shows considerable variation in the degree of poisonous effect. The
first animal in Table XI. was inoculated with acetate, this being one
of the more soluble lead compounds, and was given it in three small
doses. The animal received 0·3 gramme per kilogramme of body weight,
whereas in No. 35 2 grammes of washed frit--that is to say, lead glaze
formed by fusing together litharge and silica--actually did produce
symptoms, but of a mild nature. Animal No. 33 only had 0·16 gramme,
being 0·05 gramme per kilogramme of body weight; and this caused acute
symptoms. 0·35 gramme of white lead in a 3·500 kilogramme animal
(No. 31) produced no symptoms at all. In the list of the inoculation
experiments, three animals only exhibited no symptoms--one of these
(No. 31) which was given white lead hypodermically, and Nos. 41 and 42,
which were inoculated with lead silicate or lead frit, which had been
previously treated with acetic acid or water.
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