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FILE NAME Newspaper & Magazine Articles NMA DATE 1946 DOC NMA112 DOCUMENT DESCRIPTION Journal Article - Dangerous Dusts - Science Digest ern oe aE = pe what thisthis changichanngigng worldworld means means means means means toto youyou you InsideInside Back Cover 48 Back Cover man may live near the railroad tracks all life Be Wy: *:--} remembering pneu moconiosis Silicosis is and inhale the black soot of the but one of them Over one million passing trains day after day without any damage to his lungs Carbon from train smoke may make workers in the United States today | are exposed to one sort of dust or another Pneumoconiosis is a major his lungs black as pitch and yet they will continue to function normally He hazard in many industries BS Silicosis is the most common | may live till the age of eighty or ninety only to die of some disease of his heart or intestines or some other organs In spite of their blackness the vitality of his lungs may be spared On the other hand there are many instances where coal miners are perhaps most lethal of ; pneu- moconiosis But don't think that it is . disease exclusively of coal miners No- indeed Possible victims of the disease | are those persons who are engaged in mineral grinding rock quarrying stone cutting tunnel driving fire : equally exposed to a carbon atmosphere succumbed to serious impairment of their lungs at the age of forty or fifty If the lungs of these men are examined mortem they too will be found to be heavily stained with black pigment Why do these men die What is the difference between the carbon at the railroad tracks and the carbon in the coal mines The answer can be found brick manufacturing foundry work and the manufacture of tile and abra- . sive soap powders a There is hardly a state in the Union ; in which the problems associated with -; this disease have not presented them- selves In the Coeur d'Alene mining district of Idaho in the fire brick ' industry of Kentucky in the anthracite coal mines of Pennsylvania and in the granite industry of Vermont in one silica It is not the carbon that kills the coal miner it is silicosis Doctors have a name for these dust diseases of the lungs and although it is a tongue it is a name worth silicosis is a serious problem ; The dangerous dust that causes sili- cosis is ordinary sand Chem- ically it is represented by the formula | SiO2 which simply means silicon diox- ide in chemist's shorthand But here aes SO = RPSL a me RUBE. WM PUR SCIENCE DIGEST 29 again we run into some problems The beachcomber doesn't get silicosis and from two sources the disease it- self and from a complicating infection he may have sand blown at him all with tuberculosis Silica irritates the day The windows at a Coast Guard station may be etched and scratched lungs causing scarring which inter- feres with the normal passage of air in by particles of sand carried by the wind and yet silicosis is not a health hazard of the Coast Guard What is the difference between the and out of the lungs This results in shortness of breath coughing and sometimes feelings of weakness and fatigue If the disease is extensive sand inhaled by the granite cutter and enough it may cause progressive dis- the sand inhaled by the beachcomber ability and death The answer is size The sand silica in the stone quarry For some unknown reason lungs that are affected with silicosis are is very fine like dust the sand on the more susceptible to TB Statistics beach is coarse Furthermore and from various sources as a matter of equally important the man working in a stone grinding or polishing shed or in a mine is working in a closed space where the dust particles may accumulate in the air to astounding propor- fact indicate that about 60 per cent of the patients with silicosis develop TB as a complication It is much more difficult to cure patients with silicotuberculosis than uncomplicated cases tions Unlike the beachcomber he does Besides for them the symptoms are snd not have the advantage of pure clean usually more severe the cough is ww air swept in from the ocean worse the expectoration more annoy- Particles larger than millionths ing of an inch in diameter cause no harm Until recently the only method that since they are actually trapped within the nose and throat and expectorated doctors had for controlling silicosis was dust control When possible It is only when the dust particles are third of this size or smaller that closed spaces were eliminated In other cases blowers and vents rid the they get by the natural protective barriers of the nose and throat and atmosphere of the dangerous dusts Masks and other protective devices enter the lungs themselves On the basis of repeated surveys and examinations it has been discov- were invented Doctors found too that by routine ray examinations they could detect aered that there have to be about five evidences of the especially million particles of silica dust per cubic foot in the air before it can be regarded as a health hazard If the atmosphere is less heavily laden with dust a normal man can appar- ently work at his job for years without impairing his health The dangers from silicosis come tuberculosis it had ad- vanced too far But from a strictly medical standpoint there was very little that could be done to cure the patient of his disease or arrest its terrible progress There was no specific medicine for the victim of silicosis And then in 1937 a group of Cana- 30 SCIENCE DIGEST engaged dian researchers hit upon a brand new coats the dangerous silica particle idea They found that if they made with an infinitesimal layer of alumi experimental animals inhale finely num and thus prevents the irritation of the delicate lung tissues Harmless powdered aluminum it would protect serious toxic effects have them against silicosis At the same -so far no time in this country Dr. Leroy U. been aluminum stands as Gardner and his colleagues were work- protective barrier between dangerous ing on the same problem at the Sara- silica and the lungs nac Laboratory using aluminum hy- Aluminum even if it does prove droxides or aluminum hydrates instead be effective is no substitute for dust control Industry should continue | _ of metallic aluminum Quite independently says Doctor make every effort to provide the work Gardner we discovered that hy- er with dust atmosphere or drated alumina would also protect _ least one that does not contain exces sive amounts of dangerous dusts animals against quartz Preliminary conducted on hu- But silicosis is only one form of, man subjects confirmed the fact that pneumoconiosis Another bad one aluminum had a beneficial protective asbestosis The mineral asbestos from This was the first step in long which we get so much of our insulating action series of experiments that are still un- materials does contain free silica it is rather a complex silicate con- der way in an effort to demonstrate but that aluminum has a curative as well taining iron magnesium and calcium as a protective action against this ter- In cases of asbestosis if the lungs are examined under the microscope rible dust disease At present it seems as if both pow- tiny particles of asbestos can be easily dered metallic aluminum and alumi- identified in the lung tissues The as num hydroxide are equally effective bestos scars up the air passages causes Statistics released not long ago by Dr. them to narrow and shrink in size to J. W. G. Hannon reveal that of 143 im- fraction of their normal calibre The result is difficulty in breathing short- disabled silicotic workmen 135 proved with aluminum treatment Of ness of breath and disability * In one state North Carolina 104 additional workmen whose rays ~ showed silicosis but who were not as there theraere about 500 persons a disabled by the disease 93 im- in the asbestos industry and accord yet ing to one authority proved - treatment have already been found In the disabled patients de- Silicosis and asbestosis both have with aluminum brought about a " in time crease in the cough less shortness of marked tendency to get worse and a diminution of chest even if the person is removed from ex- breath to them Of course the amount pain aluminum protects against posure of damage done varies from person to of the Why silicosis is not known for certain There person and with the duration , in is some evidence that the aluminum exposure Some men can work it ARB REG ArehH I, ARETR t N yete Dra Dangerous Dusts 31 . particles of alum 2 irritation i Harmless fects have ands asas a dangerous is prove je for dus ontinue to e the workhere or at tain exces dusts ie form of bad one is estos from insulating i free silica ilicate connd calcium f the lungs nicroscope in be easily es The as ages causes in size to alibre The aing shor itv th Carolina ons engaged and accord- ny of them be affected both have ? orse in time ed from exthe amount n person tion of the n work in develop mines all their lives without ing any disease others will get a bad case of silicosis or asbestosis after a The reason for this varifew years ability is still a medical mystery Often especially during the war electric arc welders were seen com- plaining of irritation of their nose and throat A few of the men believed they had been poisoned by the fumes or had contracted TB In most of these cases rays of the lungs showed ab- solutely nothing abnormal As soon as these men were able to take a brief vacation or were able to get adequate rest or shorter working hours their symptoms disappeared The welding fumes had merely caused a local irritation of their upper respiratory tract but no real damage to their lungs On the other hand there were other welders whose lungs did show abnormal changes on the ray When their chest films were studied it looked al- most as if someone had thrown a handful of sand at them or had pep- pered them with a very fine buckshot These men had siderosis -a con- dition caused by inhaling fine particles of iron These particles had become lodged within the lungs That was why the lungs had a peppered appearance But actually this excess iron had not made any of these men sick Iron unlike silica or asbestos does not irritate the lungs does not cause them to scar up In this way it is more like carbon If the welding is done in open rooms the fumes do not become concentrated enough to cause changes within the lungs If the welding elec- trodes are coated or if the welders em- ploy protective masks siderosis is pre- vented But even if siderosis does occur it does not lead to progressive disability Recently for example Dr. O. A. Sander of Milwaukee reported that a group of patients with siderosis whom he had followed for years showed very little change in their rays during that period Apparently none of them had suffered as a result of the iron within their lungs Cotton dust strangely may be irri- tating to the lungs and may be responsible for some of the respiratory ail- ments of cotton mill workers Cotton- mill fever as the disease is called first begins as a mild respiratory in- fection A curious point about the disease is that patients recover somewhat over the weekends when they are not em- ployed and that symptoms are aggravated on return to work on Mon- days For this reason the disease has also been called Monday fever The cough grows worse and there is progressive disability unless the patient changes his employment to some door work Like so many of the dangerous dusts cotton dust disease can be better prevented than it can be treated There are some strange dusts that can make a person sick in ways that are still baffling and inexplicable Such a disease is the one that is called bagassosis Bagasse is the product remaining after sugar is extracted from sugar cane This material is commonly baled and if not used immediately may re- 32 SCIENCE DIGEST main exposed the field for some months before being converted by processing into insulating and acous- tic board And it is the workers who spicules of the dust that get into the lung to cause the disease Tiny slivers; or spicules of bagasse can appar- ently be very irritating to person's are employed in breaking these bales become that may stricken with the ae disease Since the first case of bagassosis was lungs In spite of ample provisions from Nature that guard our lungs from injury by dangerous dusts these provi- reported in medical literature only as recently as 1941 scientists have not yet had an opportunity to determine - the exact nature of illness First it sions are not always adequate In the highly industrialized and mechanical life of modern society it is not always possible to avoid these dusts and to was thought that it was a fungus con- . taminating the dust and not the dust itself that was responsible Other re- searchers have believed that it was due to allergy According to the latest bit of evi- dence from Drs W. A. Sodeman and breathe pure air constantly Yet present industrial engineers and modern industrial physicians are increasingly aware of their responsibility for eliminating dangerous dusts from the atmosphere or of finding some effective treatments for those workers R. L. Pullen of New Orleans it is whose lungs are damaged SSSHOSSSHHEOHSHOSSHOSSOSHSSESHSSE SHS SESH SST GOSS BSC HOE COWARD KILLER FISH The piranha fish is probably the most vicious and blood- thirsty creature of its some 6 or inches usually Piranhas have reduced a pound hog HSORADEHLS to a skeleton in ten minutes Their teeth will nick hard steel They are called the fish that men Yet this same piranha lives a life filled with terror or whatever a fish SE feels in place of terror according to Christopher W. Coates curator of DOST the New York Zoological Society's aquarium in Animal Kingdom SSHREGOPSERPRKOGARADSEVSeS In tanks of the New York Aquarium we have attempted to : rear several Piranhas at time allowing them space far disproportionate - to their size but we . have found that in- variably sooner CeScsove or later they tear each other to bits else some of them die of what ap- pears to be fright They have been found dead with no marks of fighting or injury Se Even when kept in the same tank but separated by a sheet of oe Gwe glass it is long before they learn not to dash into hiding as soon as another pokes his head from be- e de hind a stone or cluster of plants ae 38 0 0!