Aniline poisoning arises generally from inhalation, but absorption through the skin and less frequently inhalation of dust of aniline compounds cause it. We have already laid stress on the frequently severe cases resulting from carelessness in spilling on to or splashing of, clothes without at once changing them, breaking of vessels containing it, and entering vessels filled with the vapour. In literature of old date many such cases have been described, and it was stated that workers were especially affected on hot days, when almost all showed cyanosis. Such observations do not state fairly the conditions to-day in view of the improvements which Grandhomme and Leymann’s observations show have taken place in aniline factories. Still, cases are fairly frequent. Thus in a factory with 251 persons employed, thirty-three cases involving 500 days of sickness were reported.
The Report of the Union of Chemical Industry for 1907 cites the case of a worker who was tightening up the leaky wooden bung of a vessel containing aniline at a temperature of 200° C. He was splashed on the face and arms, and although the burns were not in themselves severe he died the next day from aniline absorption.
Cases of anilism are not infrequent among dyers. The reports of the Swiss factory inspectors for 1905 describe a case where a workman worked for five hours in clothes on to which aniline had spurted when opening an iron drum. Similar cases are described in the report of the English factory inspectors for the same year. Aniline black dyeing frequently gives rise to poisoning, and to this Dearden[9] of Manchester especially has called attention.
Typical aniline poisoning occurred in Bohemia in 1908 in a cloth presser working with black dyes. While crushing aniline hydrochloride with one hand, he ate his food with the other. That the health of persons employed in aniline black dyeing must be affected by their work is shown by medical examination. For instance, the English medical inspector of factories in the summer months of 1905 found among sixty persons employed in mixing, preparing, and ageing 47 per cent. with greyish coloration of lips and 57 per cent. characteristically anæmic. Further, of eighty-two persons employed in padding, washing, and drying, 34 per cent. had grey lips, 20 per cent. were anæmic, and 14 per cent. with signs of acute or old effects of chrome ulceration. Gastric symptoms were not infrequently complained of. The symptoms were worse in hot weather.
Use of aniline in other industries may lead to poisoning. Thus in the extraction of foreign resins with aniline seventeen workers suffered (eleven severely). Interesting cases of poisoning in a laundry from use of a writing ink containing aniline have been recorded.[10]
Reference is necessary to tumours of the bladder observed in aniline workers. The first observations on the subject were made by Rehn of Frankfurt, who operated in three cases. Bachfeld of Offenbach noticed in sixty-three cases of aniline poisoning bladder affections in sixteen. Seyberth described five cases of tumours of the bladder in workers with long duration of employment in aniline factories.[11] In the Höchst factory (and credit is due to the management for the step) every suspicious case is examined with the cystoscope. In 1904 this firm collected information from eighteen aniline factories which brought to light thirty-eight cases, of which eighteen ended fatally. Seventeen were operated on, and of these eleven were still alive although in three there had been recurrence.
Tumours were found mostly in persons employed with aniline, naphthylamine, and their homologues, but seven were in men employed with benzidine.
Cases of benzene and toluidine poisoning in persons superintending tanks and stills have been described.
Industrial paranitraniline poisoning has been described, and a fatal case in the Höchst dye works was attributed by Lewin (as medical referee) to inhalation of dust. Before his death the workman had been engaged for five hours in hydro-extracting paranitraniline.