Medicine: Tar Poisoning

A gob of road tar is a morsel which children like to chew. Tar contains dirt, of course, and poisons with terrific names like creosote, benzene, cyclohexane, anthracene, dianthracene, toluene, pyridine, amylene, methyl cyanide, carbon bisulphide. Tar-chewing children should be warned by the disaster which overtook a man tarring an Ohio road. As a case of industrial toxicology, the American Medical Association considered it important enough to publish in its Journal.

While the Ohio road mender had his back turned to his wagon of hot tar. scamps dumped the tar onto the road. Stifling fumes arose. The man ran to his wagon, into the noxious gases. Within a minute he fell into convulsions. A little while later he was bleeding from the mouth. Now, three years after, he is kept in a hospital. He cannot walk. He cannot feel. He writes inane and morbid poetry. He shouts out hymns for his own amusement. His wits are loose.