Document zQRwY5vNqgzkK954ej9kzyxEa

February 2, 1954 Dr. Kieffer Davis Medical Director Phillips Petroleum Company Bartlesville, Oklahoma Dear Kieffer: I should like to sit down and talk with you about a number of matters that relate to the subject of your letter of January 25, and perhaps thi3 can be done when you come to the Laboratory to give a Saturday morning seminar. I hope so. Meanwhile I shall undertake to reply as well as I can to your specific questions. The standards which we apply to the selection of men who engage in the operations for mixing anitknock compounds with gasoline are not capable of statement as specifications, since they are left to the judgment of the members of the medical staff of Ethyl Corporation who do the work in the field, These are sound and experienced men, v/ho undertake to achieve the general ourposes of the Medical Department of the Corporation with the least interference with the policies of the employer of these men, and also with the least possible dislocation of the working relationships of the men themselves. For a time, in the early period of this rather unique program of medical supervision, we were fairly rigid in our requirements, since anything that developed in a man was altogether too likely to be blamed upon tetraethyl lead. As the years passed and we were able to demonstrate the complete adequacy of the methods of protecting the men against the hazards of 'che work, we relaxed somewhat, in order to conform to the best canons of good industrial medical practice, in that we excluded few people, and then only for the most obvious reasons. In some places few men are available for the job, and in others there are good reasons, in terms of the personal reliability and responsibility of a man, for overlooking physical handicaps of certain types. On the side of age, we prefer in all instances to avoid minors, because of the strong flavor of prejudice relating to juvenile susceptibility to lead, as well as the general feeling that minors should not be engaged in unduly hazardous occupations. We prefer' not to use old men, for a number of reasons, but sometimes an older man is the best man available in terms of his intelligence, reliability and responsiveness to our instructions.