Handling Inorganic Compounds of Arsenic: Introductory Statement: I. Mortality Experience in the Factory.

JO URNAL OP INL5USTRIAL MEDICINE-(fatal) in 1943.In the 1939 case the skin of the trunk and limbs was pigmented, with numerous small, flat, warty growths.There was perforation of the nasal septum.At the apex of the right lung there was a hard mass of cancer, and the glands in its neighbourhood showed evidence of metastases.The period of exposure to sheep-dip powder was thirty-seven years.In one of the 1940 cases post- mortem examination established the cause of death as septic bronchitis caused by a primary oat-celled carcinoma of the lungs.In the 1943 case, the period of exposure to sheep-dip dust was 43 years, and post-mortem examination revealed a columnarcelled adenocarcinoma of the upper lobe of the right lung.Thus arsenic has long been suspect as a potential carcinogen, and in 1945 the British Factory Depart- ment referred the specific question of the occupational relationship of arsenic and cancer of the lung to the Industrial Health Research Board of the Medical Research Council, and a special Committee*