Proceedings of a conference to determine whether or not there is a public health question in the manufacture, distribution, or use of tetraethyl lead gasoline / Prepared by direction of the surgeon general.

  • United States. Public Health Service.
Date:
1925
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proceedings of a conference to determine whether or not there is a public health question in the manufacture, distribution, or use of tetraethyl lead gasoline / Prepared by direction of the surgeon general. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    effects at all—temporary burning and skin blotches, but nothing more serious. Now, that is the situation. as we found it in interviewing those who had handled ethyl fluid and also ethyl gasoline, and the results are entirely negative. As health administrators, you will readily see that in a report like that you would not be justified in stating that it is logical to discontmue the use of ethyl gasoline on those results alone. We must be guided entirely by the findings and the result and the dictum of those who can foresee whether there is toxic material or lead poisoning which may make itself felt in the future; but so far as the present situation is concerned, as a health administrator I feel that it is entirely negative. I would certainly urge, as Doctor Emerson has, the continuation of these experiments, and I would also like to urge that the Surgeon General ultimately arrive at. some decision which may act as.a guide to the health commissioners and health officers throughout the country. Now, Mr. Chaitmdin, the American Public Health Association has seen fit to appoint a committee to represent the association at this conference, and Doctor Hayhurst, of Columbus, who is an active member of our section on industrial hygiene, is here, and I hope that you will permit Doctor Hayhurst to continue this discussion on behalf of the health administrators. The Cuatrman. Doctor Hayhurst. DR. E. R. HAYHURST College of Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio I have also been delegated by the State Department of Ohio to state our experiences with ethyl gasoline. The substance of the Whole situation 1s summed up very much in this, that’ we have been undecided what to do because of the animal experimentations on the one side, in this place and that, and in the result of the reports of our health officers. We have hed to get out, as the late President Burton, of Michigan, said in a story and root for our- selves. President Burton said that a man who decided to raise pigs scientifically put one in a pen on a balanced diet and it gained a hundred pounds im six months. Another one he put in a pen on a balanced diet and all the alfalfa it could eat and it gained 200 pounds in six months. Another he put in a similar pen, a he left 2 hole in the end of the pen. It got out in the yard and rooted for itself and gained 300 pounds in six months, | I am only going to talk about the rooting part of the Neato nA tions. Last August when we were called to Dayton, Ohio, we made re- ports on conditions which had been investigated by the State de-