Medicine: Occupational Itch

> In a Baltimore plane factory so many workers recently broke out with rashes that the disorder was known as the “Bendix Itch.”

> Sperry Gyroscope Co. had so much skin trouble among its employes that it now urges workers in some departments to rub a protective cream on their hands before starting work.

> Du Pont supplies some of its workers with a clean pair of cotton gloves every two hours.

All over the U.S. dermatitis—skin trouble—is a growing problem in war industries. “More time is lost from work on account of occupational dermatitis than from any other occupational disease,” wrote Dr. Louis Schwartz of the U.S. Public Health Service in the New York State Journal of Medicine last week. Most industrial dermatitis is not serious enough to keep a man from his job, but it makes a longtime drain on his efficiency.

Many people are allergic or sensitive to chemicals such as turpentine, T.N.T., formaldehyde, fulminate of mercury, picrates, synthetic dyes, etc. Slight exposure to them is often harmless, but prolonged exposure or a sudden “overdose” may cause the worker to become sensitized, so that thenceforth even slight exposure produces eruptions or scaliness on his hands, arms, face, body. In one summer half the workers in a Pennsylvania plastics factory had dermatitis when they became sensitized to the formaldehyde in the material.

Potential irritants are almost everywhere—e.g., the oils with which sheets of aviation aluminum are coated, the chloronaphthalenes which waterproof electrical equipment, the oils which cool and lubricate the cutting edges of machine tools. Cutting oils are probably most bothersome. A Federal survey of 2,000 machinists in 1922 found that 27% of these workers suffered from oil acne. Vegetable and animal oils have often replaced the petroleum oils, but machinist’s dermatitis is still common.

Prevention of dermatitis is fairly simple. Doctors and safety engineers emphasize slightly different measures. Industrial doctors insist primarily on cleanliness —plenty of scrubbing with mild soaps both in the factory and at home, frequent changes of clothes which have been carefully designed to keep out dust and fumes. “It has been found best to have the management of the plant undertake the laundering of such clothes,” advises Dr. Schwartz, “because the worker himself is often loathe to spend the money.” Cost to the factory runs about 10¢ a day per worker.

When possible, gloves should be transparent: if workers cannot see their hands, they feel confined and prefer to work gloveless. Improper living outside working hours often precipitates a dermatosis and doctors are increasingly fretful over the zoot-suit-swing-shift aspect of war industry.

Safety engineers, who must also see that a plant is well ventilated and cleaned, urge workers to use new industrial skin creams (e.g., Du Font’s “Pro-Tek”), which have been concocted to guard the skin from irritating chemicals. Insurance companies, which often have to fork over for industrial dermatoses, also encourage their use. Sales have doubled in the last year, and girls leave aircraft plants with smooth hands, after degreasing plane parts all day. But most doctors sniff at these industrial cosmetics. They claim that cleanliness will do the same trick.