Dermatitis From Cutting Oils, Solvents and Dielectrics, Including Chloracne

The use of solvents and cutting oils is so widespread that it is not possible to inspect any large manufacturing plant without encountering some department where one or the other is used. All operations in which cutting tools are used are literally bathed in oil of one type or another. It is almost impossible under ordinary conditions and much more so under the pressure of war production for the workers to avoid intimate contact with either the solvents or the cutting oils used in their operations. Dermatitis from cutting oils, especially those of the insoluble type, occurs more frequently than any other occupational disease of the skin. If its incidence could be decreased, one of the most vexing problems of the industrial physician would be solved. The use of the dielectrics, especially the chlorinated hydrocarbons, is rapidly increasing. The latter give rise to a characteristic cutaneous eruption, known popularly as