Document yrOX6YyyN5XeNO2VrwmD2km5E

February 6, 1953 Mr. A. X. Schmidt Department of Chemistry College of the City of New York Com' ent Avenue and li^Oth Street New York City Dear Mr. Schmidtt I ara very sorry that I can not give yon any information on the subject wWch you mention in your letter of January 2lj.th, I have not investigated the lead content of tobacco although I am aware that lead is to: be found not only In cigarettes but in practically all forms of tobacco. So far ac T. an aware, the only information in the medical literature refers to the lead content of snuff. Cases of lead poisoning which have resulted fatally in a few instances have occurred on the use of snuff heavily contaminated with lead chromate " which had been employed in order to give the snuff a commercially desirable color. You may be interested in some of the references which occur in medical literature in this connection. Joseph dtfcal had an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association - Volume 90 Page 298 - 1928. Bauer and Rope3 published an article in the same Journal - Volume 90 Page 757 - 1928. both of these articles give other references. The amount of lead which is in cigarettes is not known to me and I would judge that the qxuinttties would show considerable variation. It is not a particularly difficult matter for anyone who is in position to make use of highly accurate methods of analysis, to determine the lead content of cigarettes, "-e have not tiad occasion to do so for the reason that the problem does not seem to me to be especially important in view of the very much larger opportunities for lead absorption from a variety of other very common sources. As to what occurs during the smoking of cigarettes or cigars, I have even less basis for opinion. My guess is that a certain amount of finely divided lead ??ould be inhaled and the greater portion of it would be exhaled. However, this is a pure gue">s and since I do not consider it seriously myself, I should not wish the opin' on to be taken seriously by anyone else. I can only give you one further suggestion namely, that if you are interested in carrying out some experimental work on this subject, it would be advisable to review with great care the analytical methods which are now available. In the past few years several methods have been developed which have a very high accuracy* For the sake of example, the method which we have used is capable of detecting amounts some what less than .05 to *04. of a milligram* Quantitative accuracy is possible in the case of amounts in excess of .05 of a milligram* Very truly yours.