Document e5ejQQmaqomwMRq65JO7D3Ngy

LEAD INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION 420 LEXINGTON AVENUE NEW YORK. N. Y. January 27, 1943 LEAD HYGIENE A2TD SAFETY bu l Lt iI! no. 25 To Members of the Lead Industries Association: Herewith please find extract from a letter by Dr. Joseph C. Aub of the Harvard Medical School on the medical investigations he is making aided by a grant from the Lead Industries Association. Very truly yours. Secretary. Load Hygiene & Safety Bulletin No. 25 COPY January 27, 1943 Report on the Investigations aided by a Grant from the Lead Industries Association 1941-1942 Since, my last report to you, in June, 1941, we have continued to study radioactive isotopes, particularly in relation to the permeability of cells grown in tissue culture. To the work previously reported, we have added potassium and lead salts, and this work is continuing in spite of the war. A. vast amount of information has been accumulated and is now nearing the stage where publication is possible. We have been fortunate in being able to continue to get radioactive isotopes from the cyclotron at the Institute of Technology, though that apparatus is devoted primarily to war needs. On May 1, 1942, our laboratories moved to very nioe quarters at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Research was interrupted for only a short period at the time of moving. At this time, however, we plunged into war work, studying wound shock, a problem which I studied during World War X. The personnel paid by the Lead Fund, however, was still able to oarry on its work on inorganic salt metabolism. The technician who was working on the perme ability problem has continued to do only that work and plans to continue with it until it is completed. Dr. Cohn has been able to supervise the work though he has spent most of his time on the war problem of shock whioh has engrossed our laboratory. Our first approach to the war problem was based on what we had learned from the permeability problem, supported by the Lead Industries Association, and proved of considerable value in working out the effect of shock on the permeability of body cells. Other problems have also arisen from this original study, such as the absorption of inorganic salts from the stomach and the permeability of cells for radioactive dyes, etc., whioh have been completed .during the year. In August of last year. Dr. Seymour Kety joined our sta He has a National Research Council Fellowship whioh enables him to spend one year with us, but whioh he did not finally accept until he was refused by the Army be cause of a physical disability. Since then he has been partly involved in the shook problem but is also continuing his very interesting studies on the impor tance of citrate ions in the liberation and deposit of lead in the body. This approach to the treatment of lead poisoning is an extremely interesting one. It is based on the knowledge that lead citrate, like calcium citrate, is not ionised and, therefore, should have a vary low' toxicity. Dir. Kety has done very interesting work in this field at the University of Pennsylvania and hero, using our supply of radioactive lead to see whether citrates liberate load from the bones, and so aecontuate exoretion. Wo are particularly f ortunate to have him with us for hie is a most able young man and is proving a superior investigator. N 24802.01