Document zxw2JB2zZ5rdvEm9pO4DD3R0

October IX Miss Margaret S. Perry, Editor The Journal of Industrial Hygiene and Toxicology 55 Shattuck Street Boston 15 Massachusetts Dear Miss Perryi '> . I am sorry that I have been so slow in the returning of the manuscript enclosed herewith. It came at a time when I was out of the laboratory, and unfortunately I have spent most of the last month away from my office. It was Impossible to return It promptly with my comments. This was especially true because I felt It necessary to take serious exceptions to the efforts of the authors, and therefore it was necessary to explain my viewpoint In some detail. In studying the manuscript I made certain pencil notes in the margin and elsewhere. This I probably should not have done, but my editorial habits betrayed me, especially at points where I felt that serious criticism was needed. I trust that this will not embarrass you unduly, and certainly what I have written in can easily be erased. I would have erased these marks myself, except for the fact that I feel th6y may reveal something of the nature of my criticism which may not be wholly evident otherwise. You and your reviewers may feel that I am being unduly severe In my criticism of this paper. If so, you will not wish to accept my judgment. It Is by no means necessary that you should, of course, but I wish to make one additional comment `concerning the publication of this paper. If it Is published In anything like its present form, I shall have to prepare a paper based on the accumulated data of more than fifteen years, in an effort to offset what I consider a devastating attack on sound methods of dealing with this problem in the lead trades. The data being used in this paper are only a minute fraction of data which we have collected from corresponding industries, and I believe I can show clearly what Hamlin and Weber are saying is largely the result of an inept and inexperienced approach to this general problem. In commenting on their paper at the time of the meeting at which it was presented in slightly different form, I was only gently critical. I actually commended their besort to methods W h i c h would give useful information and I concluded by saying that If they would s tick to their observations, they would come around to our point of view. T&I may have sounded patronizing, but I did not mean It that way. The publication of this paper, on the most active in this are rediscovering what some of us have outgrown years ago, T'his flurry will have run its course in five or ten years or les3 when present information shall have gained more current application. The Journal should , not, without great caution, lend itself as the sounding board for tnis activity. it should demand contributions to our informatlon, not inadequately supported expressions of opinion. By such policy it; will continue to have reason for pride in what it has done to advance concepts and practice in the field of industrial hygiene. - To return to this paper - It is possible or even, likely that the facts represented in this paper could be assembled advantageously in such a manner as to be useful. First, a simple statement would be required as to their origin in a program which is not as yet fully developed and perfected. Then should come.the presentation of the data in more appropriate form (by years, for example, and/or with illustrations of variability in relation to time and method of sampling and analysis). Then a modest an| tentative interpretation of further procedure and applications of procedure could properly be made. "Impressions" referred to previously, could be stated, but the thesis that present standards are too exacting for ''practical" purposes, on the basis of the apparent accomplishments up to date, is presuiaptious and impertinent and, excepting as it is made naively, and, in ignorance of what others have done and published, it is profesaionaly reprehensible, buch a statement should not be countenanced j.n cue pages of the Journal on such flimsy evidence as bag been provided. jlso th philosophy concerning the health of the "greatest inumber of men" cannot be acceptable, without very careful qualifications to the Journal. Actually I think this philosophy is badly expressed rather than badly conceived, but certainly it cannot be accepted as it is said, for the sake of either "practicality" or common decency. KT 0015226