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
Closely associated with paralysis are affections involving the brain.
Tanquerel, in his classical description of affections of the brain
associated with lead poisoning, gives the following classification:
1. Delirium.
2. Lead mania.
3. Psychic depression.
4. Coma.
5. Convulsions, saturnine eclampsia, or epilepsy.
There is probably a very considerable relationship between insanity
and lead poisoning, as pointed out by Robert Jones[17], the resident
physician and Superintendent of Claybury Asylum.
Rayner[18] remarked that the compulsorily careful habits of life
of painters and lead-workers ought to protect them against vicious
habits, and should protect them against a too free indulgence in the
use of alcohol! Our own experience is that paralysis, and particularly
affections of the brain, occur in the majority of cases in persons
who are addicted to alcohol, and the experiments quoted in the
chapter on Pathology on the influence of alcohol in the production of
encephalitis in animals is strong presumptive evidence that alcohol is
one of the chief predisposing causes in the determination of saturnine
encephalopathy.
Encephalitis is given as a cause of death in the report already
referred to in 14·3 per cent. of 264 fatal cases. Amongst this number
encephalopathy accounted for 14·3 per cent., cerebral hæmorrhage 9·8
per cent., and paralysis 9·2 per cent. Now, all these are cases in
which cerebral lesions may be confidently stated to have existed,
which brings the total to 34·4 per cent. of deaths at least due to
brain involvement. We have already referred to the high incidence of
paralysis amongst file-cutters--40 per cent. as against 21·1 per cent.
for all industrial forms of poisoning.
When encephalitis occurs, it is usually an acute symptom, and often
develops before paralysis is set up, but as a rule is preceded by a
period of persistent headache, such headache being invariably temporal
or occipital.
Robert Jones, in his paper, states that of the 133 cases who, from the
nature of their work (painters, plumbers, etc.), were liable to lead
impregnation, 19 had signs of poisoning upon admission, whilst 22 had a
distinct history of lead poisoning at some time or other. He gives the
following analysis of the mental condition:
Mania 37
Melancholia 33
Dementia 19
Dementia with epilepsy 10
Dementia with general paralysis 24
? General paralysis 7
Alcoholic mania 3
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133
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