The painter Caravaggio may have died from lead poisoning due to the composition of paints, and Goya, Rubens, Renoir, Klee and Van Gogh were also thought to have suffered from lead poisoning (also known as ‘Saturnism’) for the same reason. ‘Sugar of lead’ was also used to sweeten wine. It was also used extensively in Rome’s aqueducts, and may have caused the epidemic of gout in the city. A century later, Dioscorides wrote about the madness caused by lead poisoning. Lead is believed to have been first mined in Anatolia around 6500BCE, with Greek botanist Nicander describing the colic and paralysis in the 2nd century BCE. Pott’s investigation contributed to the development of the science of epidemiology. The cause of Chimney Sweep’s Cancer was identified by surgeon Sir Percival Pott, with the carcinogen thought to be coal tar, possibly containing arsenic. They could become jammed in a flue, suffocate or burn to death. The boys engaged in such work also faced other dangers. The disease was largely confined to Britain due to the loose (or absent) clothing worn. The cancer eventually made its way into the abdomen where it became fatal. Prevalent among chimney sweeps aged in their late teens or early 20’s, the disease is a squamous cell carcinoma of the skin of the scrotum, caused by the irritation of soot particles. Chimney Sweep’s CancerĪlso known as Soot Wart, this disease was the first reported form of occupational cancer, identified in 1775. If you collect antique medical equipment, be warned that the bottles containing the Radium Water are still radioactive even though they may have been empty for a long period of time. The problem of patent medicine containing radium was brought to public attention by the Wall Street Journal in 1932 with the headline, “The Radium Water Worked Just Fine until His Jaw Came Off.” As a result, the safety standards improved for decades. The case established legal precedents and triggered the enacting of regulations over labour safety standards. It was recognised in 1824 to be symptomatic of radium paint ingestion, as similar symptoms were reported in various radium paint factories, and a lawsuit by the ‘Radium Girls’ resulted. At the urging of the companies, doctors often attributed the symptoms to syphilis to smear the reputations of the women. The mouth and jaw were impacted as the lips and tongue were used to keep the paint brushes properly shaped. The symptoms include severe abscesses of the jaw and bleeding gums. Similar to Phossy Jaw, Radium Jaw particularly impacted the mainly female workers hired to paint watch faces with radium for luminescence in the US, as well as people ingesting patent medicines laden with radium. The disease has now largely been eliminated. Patients could only be saved from organ failure through the removal of the jaw bones.Ī match factory was opened in 1891 by William Booth and The Salvation Army using red phosphorous, however white phosphorous was still in use until prohibited by the International Berne Convention in 1906, implemented over the next few years. When exposed to the vapour, people would begin to suffer from painful toothaches and gum swelling, and gradually the jaw bone would abscess and glow in the dark. White phosphorous was the active ingredient in matches between the 1840’s and 1910’s. This disease famously impacted London’s match girls, as well as others working with white phosphorous without safeguards. Spare a though for those working in earlier and even more dangerous times. While workplace disease is an ongoing challenge, we tend to forget how enormous some of those improvements have been.Įmployees can now generally expect safe workplaces and if their health suffers as a result of the workplace, compensation is possible. Some of these diseases set precedents in the development of workplace safety changes, and these have been built on as the years have passed.
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