Document 2DzJD7K15aEvVZVGKg6Yk0E7

' ' r-: 530 LETTERS TO THE JOURNAL JFeb. 13, 39CI oxygen-deficit incurred after alveolar oxygen lias mann, in a U. S. Labor Bureau Statistics Bulletin, - ,* been absorbed without replenishment from atmos assured the insurance companies that the early pheric air. Hyperventilation, often applied to remedy deaths among asbestos workers were due to shallow or slow respiration, also decreases the car tuberculosis. bon dioxide level below the threshold needed to It is a pretty exercise in medical, histor}' to consult motivate die respiratory center. If carotid body textbooks of pathology from 1910 to 1930. They arc hypoxemia has been supplying -stimuli to respira uniformly blank on asbestosis. And even today, the tion, 100% oxygen also deprives the patient of this descriptions smell of library paste, drive to spontaneous and adequate ventilation. Collapse of the lungs from these causes is pre ventable by ventilation with a helium-oxygen mix ture supplying percentages of oxygen nearer that of Nicholas C. Demy, M.D. 912 Prospect Ave. Plainfield, N. J. ' room air, using a rate of artificial ventilation that does not induce bypocarbia. Transition from the Psychogenic Fever artificial atmosphere of the anesthetic machine to a normal atmosphere should not be an abrupt change of rate of pulmonary ventilation or a precipitous decline in percentage of inhaled oxygen. . . M. J. Fccst, M.D. 29 S. LaSalle St. - Cliicago, Illinois To the Editor:--The question from Roland D Roecker on page 1221 of tl? Oct. 19th Jovunw interests me greatly because I have seen ninny case in which I felt no doubt about the -the psyebogeni production of fever. My most remarkable case w: that of a professional athlete, a woman with a maj nificent body but a peculiar type of slightly pr Asbestoris chotic mind. She went for four years with a fpv< that sometimes readied 103r'F (39.4aC). She w. To the Editor.*--The editorial, "Dangerous Dusts and Furtive Fumes--*New* and Resurrected" (JAMA, Nov. 5,1960, page 1320), is coiTect is pointing out an interesting illusion. A truly new disease has a classic description to which little can be. added as time goes on, but the unwary reporter of a "new" who ignores classical literature, whether medical or not, is apt to be only a resurrection mas. Asbestosis is so "new" a disease that industry has reluctantly accepted it as an occupational hazard. And yet Strabo, the Greek geographer and historian (63 B. C--24 A. D.) described the dangers of as bestos weaving, and Pliny the Younger (61-113 A. D.), is his description of the diseases of slaves, called asbestosis as occupational disease. Both writers stated that the use of asbestos in the manu facture of handkerchiefs, headduths, and tablecloths was common, and that the cost of these articles was equal to the pearls of India. No mention is made of studied in some of the biggest and best medic institutions in tliis 'country. Because she had a 1 of abdominal pain with her fever, her ahdonv was explored tlixee times before I saw her. The 1 surgeon had said there might be slight, possil: tuberculous changes in her tidies, so, 1 am admin* to say, l allowed her to have a fourth explorati*: When, looking over the shoulder of the surgeon saw absolutely nothing in her abdomen to expl. her pain or her fever, I got in touch with a worn friend of hers and learned that the fever had beg four years before when she married a man who,. pareatlv because of her lack of femininity, eo not get an erection with her. The day she agreec divorce him, the fever left and didn't ccmc b for, as I remember, a year or two. Then she retur: with her old fever and abdominal pain. This t. I found tiiat her problem was that a powc. athlete had fallen violently in love with her but the disease among miners of asbestos. so jealous that he caused her nothing but g- Until 1900, deaths among asbestos workers were anxiety. The day 1 talked her into putting a attributed to pneumonia or tuberculosis. In that tinent between her and the lover, she got year, Murray described mineral deposits in the lungs again. of a young man wlio died after 10 yean* exposure I could tell of patients in whom die fear o in the dusty cubicle of an asbestos factory. His operation produced a temperature of 1( description is consistent with what we now know to (3S.93C). I could tell of times when a womui be asbestos particles. Our scientific knowledge of merely coming into my office felt anxiety that this "sew* disease stems from that autopsy, though duced a temperature of 102F. and I remembe tiie clue was 1800 years old. stances m which fever was very definitely dt Oise would think that would be enough, but the temper tantrums of men with psychic cpil medical obtuseness, industrial coyness, and labors Their fever disappeared the day 1 put thcr timidness unwittingly hoodwinked the law in a De diphenvlbydantoin sodium. partment of Labor investigation in Canada, 1912. Walter C. Ai.v.miz, M The Commission could find no occupational dam 700 N. Michigan Ave. age in 600 asbestos workers. Even in I9IS, Hoff Chicago