Document Z4VnpGX3QL53k6wqqv5jgwJ0L

TUMORS OF THE SKIN 159 oil products were seen, according to Bridge and Henry, in oilers and greasers employed among machinery, engine tenders, mechanics, and certain operatives of engineering trades. Since 1920 cancers due to mineral oils were reported in 17 cotton mill workers other than spinners, n engineering workers, 9 textile machinists, and 2 woolen mill workers. Bridge and Henry commented that, apart from cancer caused by shale oil and spindle oil in mule spinning, the incidence of oil cancer in other industries was not high. These investigators believed that this was partly due to the lack of belief of the medical man, who should report them, that any cancer was occupational. Refining of foreign mineral oils in England had at that time, in the opinion of Bridge and Henry, not been carried out long enough to have resulted in the production of malignant skin lesions. The Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops for the Year 1928 listed for the year 1928, 101 additional cases of mule spin ners' cancer, and 4 cases of mineral oil cancer among members of other trades. The reports of this agency for 1929, 1931 and 1937 recorded the following data as to the incidence of mule spinners' cancer and oil cancer: Years 1929 I93O 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 Total Mule Spinners 54 82 60 Other Industries 20 15 18 63 41 62 61 39 462 6 5 5 7 7 83 1 1 Total Henry found, according to the report for 1929, oil cancer in 2 workers and keratoses located on the forearms in 6 workers employed in the manufacture of oil gas (used for lighting railway carriages) from a mineral oil mainly composed of shale oil. An additional case involving the left hand was observed in a machine minder at a rope works, who came in contact with mineral lubricating oil used in a compound rope-making machine. When Henry and Irvine published in 1936 their report dealing with the occupational distribution of scrotal cancer in the Blackburn Registration Dis trict where plants connected with the cotton trade (weaving, dyeing, bleaching, and finishing) are located, they made the following observations: The earliest report of a scrotal cancer in a spinner of this district was made in 1898} the incidence of this disease in the district increased steadily since 1910; with 1,502 mule spinners employed in Blackburn in the year 1921, there were 111 cases of scrotal cancer reported for this occupational group during the period 1837 to 1929, or 74.0 per 1,000 employed spinners in 1921. In an abstract of a thesis on the same subject, published in 1935, Irvine pointed out that the incidence of scrotal cancer and of cutaneous cancer of other sites was far in excess in mule Jspinners than that seen in other cotton operatives or other workers