[962] Beiträge zur gerichtl. Medicin, Toxikol. u. Pharmakodynamik, Würzburg, 1858.
§ 888. Effects of some of the Chromium Salts on Man—Bichromate Disease.—In manufacturing potassic bichromate, the workmen exposed to the dust have suffered from a very peculiar train of symptoms, known under the name of “bichromate disease.” It was first described in England by Sir B. W. Richardson.[963] It appears that if the workmen inspire the particles chiefly through the mouth, a bitter and disagreeable taste is experienced, with an increase of saliva. This increase of the buccal secretion gets rid of most of the poison, and in that case but little ill effect is experienced; but those who keep the mouth closed and inspire by the nose, suffer from an inflammation of the septum, which gradually gets thin, and ultimately ulcerated; finally the whole of the septum is in this way destroyed. It is stated that when a workman has lost his nasal septum, he no longer suffers from nasal irritation, and has a remarkable immunity from catarrh. The Chemical Works Committee of Inquiry report (1893) that the manufacture of bichromate of potash or soda is practically in the hands of three firms at Glasgow, Rutherglen, and Falkirk, and that they visited all of them, and found “that almost all the men working where dust was prevalent, more especially between the furnaces and the dissolving tanks, had either perforation of the septum of the nose, or had lost the septum altogether.” The bichromate also causes painful skin affections—eruptions akin to eczema or psoriasis; also very deep and intractable ulcerations. These the workers call “chrome holes.” These cutaneous maladies start from an excoriation; so long as the skin is not broken, there seems to be little local effect, if any. The effects of the bichromate are also seen in horses employed at the factories; the salt getting into a wound or crack in the leg, produces ulceration: horses may even lose their hoofs.
[963] Brit. and For. Med. Chirurg. Review, Oct. 1863. See also a paper by the same writer, read before the Medical Society, reported in the Lancet, March 11, 1882.
§ 889. Acute poisoning by the chromates is rare. In the ten years ending 1892, in England and Wales, 4 accidental deaths are ascribed to potassic bichromate and 1 to chromic acid. Falck has, however, been able to find in medical literature 17 cases, 6 of which were suicidal, 10 accidental, and in 1 the bichromate was used as an abortive. In a case of poisoning by the chromate of potash (related by Maschka),[964] in which a woman, aged 25, took for a suicidal purpose a piece of potassic chromate, which she described as the size of a hazel-nut (it would probably be at least 6 grms. in weight), the chief symptoms were vomiting, diarrhœa, pain in the stomach, and rapid collapse; death took place fourteen hours after swallowing the poison.
[964] Prager Vierteljahrsschr. f. d. prakt. Heilk., Bd. 131, § 37, 1877; Schmidt’s Jahrb. 1878, Bd. 178, § 237. See also Schuchardt in Maschka’s Handbuch, Bd. ii. p. 3.