AN UNSUSPECTED DANGER.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17193, 9 July 1921, Page 15

AN UNSUSPECTED DANGER.

Danger lurks in many unsuspected quarters, but few would dream of the blacksmith's smithy or the tinsmith's or plumber's workshop being a Bourco of danger to the health of the community. Yet the researches of Dr. James Gairdnen medioal officer of health for Crieft (Scotland), begun more than a anartir of a century ago, and recorded w .a recent number of the "Lancet," clearly iildicato that they must be so regartlett. He has found that tihe hot, almost invisible, wide-spreading fumes emittea from the chimneys of such workshops are charged with a Certain percentage of benzine and naphthalene end of certain metallic poisons, especially manganese compounds; and that tneso, through being iribaled, are apt to, produce in course of time profound disturbances of the integumentary, rap»™"*& and nervous systems, leading ultimately iri certain oases to various forms or ekin disease, rheumatism, pneumonia, and even cancer. As a naeasure, Dr. Gairdner suggests that every «uch chimney should be provided »Jth Hap or hoocl, *n which the poisonous cotopounde would be deposited.