Floors.
—These should be smooth and impervious. Wood flooring can hardly be regarded as coming within this category; it is unsuitable where lead processes are carried on. Preference must be given to floors of concrete and the like material, which can be washed down easily rather than swept. Frequently the dust raised in sweeping the floor has determined an attack of lead poisoning. No objection can be raised to wooden grids and iron roll matting placed on the concrete floor for the workers to stand on. Cold feet and transference of lead dust by the boots are lessened by their use. Where traffic is heavy, as is often the case in lead works, vibration is set up with wooden floors, and dust disseminated. In smelting works cast-iron plates are serviceable as flooring.
Instruction of the Worker.
—Too much stress cannot be laid on this point. To insist upon it, however, is useless unless the occupier has installed the necessary exhaust ventilation, and equipped his factory with the other essentials for enabling the workman to guard against dust and free his hands of adhering lead, in whatever form. When this has been done, then the worker himself can do something.
Often he creates dust unnecessarily. In shovelling out of a cask with spade or trowel, in order to get out the last trace of the material to be transferred, he generally gives it a knock, which causes dust to fly so sharply as to escape the exhaust; or he removes the implement quickly from the exhaust, before it has been completely emptied and while dust is still being given off. He will use a brush to clean his bench in preference to cleaning it by a wet method. The printer may hold type between his teeth. Many workers bite their nails. Moustache and beard may be fingered, and because of this workers may even be advised to be clean-shaven. They may chew or smoke constantly while at work, and will frequently eat with unwashed hands.
Notices enjoining care and cleanliness may be, and often are, hung up in the workrooms, or a leaflet, such as the one here printed, is handed to the worker on his first examination by the surgeon. Nothing, however, can take the place of actual verbal instruction from occupier, foreman, and fellow-worker impressed with the importance of the matter.
Lead Poisoning: how Caused and how best Prevented.
Unless great care is taken, work in lead and lead compounds is injurious to health, because the lead enters the system and causes lead poisoning.
Danger is greatest from breathing leady dust or fume, but eating with unwashed hands, and biting nails or putting such things as sweets or pipes into the mouth while the fingers are soiled with lead, all help to cause poisoning.
Many workers in lead have a blue line round the edge of the gums, but the first actual symptoms of the injurious action of lead on the system are costiveness, colicky pains in the stomach, headache, and marked paleness. Occasionally headache is associated with epileptic fits, a very serious condition, which may be followed by loss of sight. “Wrist-drop,” loss of power in the muscles moving the fingers and wrist, results sometimes from lead poisoning, and may cause permanent disablement from work. It does not usually come on until after a person has worked in lead for some years.