TETRAETHYL LEAD FATAL TO MAKERS
An Industrial Peril
Which the Washington Inquiry Into Gasoline Does Not Cover.
8 DEAD, 300 ILL, IN
1 PLANT
Dangers in Producing
the Chemical Compound Shown in Record at Deep Water, N.J.
DEATHS SINCE PLANT
CLOSED
Illness Begins With
Hallucinations of Butterflies and Terminates in Violent Insanity and
Death.
Deaths
in Tetraethyl Gas Production at a Single Plant
-
Sept. 21,
1923--FRANK W. DURR, 37 years old, dye worker; died at Penns Grove,
N.J.; attended by Dr. Raymond B. Jarratt.
-
July 30,
1924--JOSEPH CIANCI, 24 years old, dye works operator; died at Salem
(N.J.) Memorial Hospital; attended by Dr. Harry W. Lee.
-
Aug. 12,
1924--FRAN HANLEY, 23 years old, dye worker; received at Salem
Hospital with gastric ulcer and underwent operation but then went
insane subsequently from tetraethyl lead poisoning; attended by Dr.
F. H. Church.
-
Oct. 20
1924--SIM JONES, 47 years old, negro janitor at plant; died in Salem
Hospital; attended by Dr. Lee.
-
Feb 13,
1925--FREDERICK W. DeFIEBRE, 21 years old, dye worker; died at Salem
Hospital; attended by Dr. Lee.
-
Feb 16,
1924--ROBERT F. HUNTSINGER, 35 years old, dye worker; died at
Cumberland County Hospital for the Insane at Bridgeton, N.J.;
attended by Dr. E. C. Lyon.
-
Feb 28,
1925--LORING M. BOODY, 53 years old, carpenter; died at Carney's
Point, N.J.; attended by Dr. Lee.
-
March 27,
1925--JAMES CONNELL, 49 years old, millwright; died at home in
Wilmington, Del.; attended by Dr. James A. Draper
By SILAS BENT. [June
22, 1925]
Eight workers in the
du Pont tetraethyl gas plant at Deep Water, near Penns Grove, N. J.
have died in delirium from tetraethyl lead poisoning in eighteen
months and 300 others have been stricken, but not fatally. Whatever
the findings of Surgeon General Hugh S. Cumming's committee on the
distribution and use of "antiknock" gasoline treated with
the compound, the full record of fatalities, now made public for the
first time, reveals afresh the hazards of its industrial production.
The plant has been closed since April [1925].
Four of the deaths
at Deep Water have occurred this year, three in a single month, while
State and Federal authorities were still investigating the disaster
of last October in the Standard Oil's Bayway plant near Elizabeth,
N.J., in which five lost their lives. The poisonings this year of du
Pont employees occurred in a new million-dollar plant, after two
years of experience in production and presumably after the
experimental stage had passed. The Federal committee of seven
appointed by Dr. Cummings, however, is not concerned with this
industrial phase. It is directed to report on the commercial phase
by Jan. 1. "if possible".
The first cases of
tetraethyl lead intoxication known to medical science developed in
September, 1923, at the du Pont plant, and baffled famous
neurologists who were consulted. One of the early symptoms is a
hallucination of winged insects. The victim pauses, perhaps while at
work or in a rational conversation, gazes intently at space, and
snatches at something not there. The employees at Deep Water have
ironically dubbed the plant "The House of the Butterflies."
The list of dead
presented herewith was officially verified at the du Pont
headquarters in Wilmington, Del., on Friday. Dr. A. K. Smith, chief
of the medical staff, says that the 300 cases mentioned do not
include those slightly affected. Some were merely hysterical from
anxiety. About 80 per cent of all who worked in "The House of
the Butterflies," or who went into it to make repairs, were
poisoned, some repeatedly.
One
Other Death in Doubt.
The du Pont
officials said that the list of eight which I resented was complete
and that there had been no other deaths from tetraethyl at Deep
Water. No report had been made to them, it was said, regarding John
Demesse, a plumber, who died last Sept. 11 at Delaware Hospital in
Wilmington after doing some work in the plant. The death certificate
gives typhoid as the cause.
Mrs. Mary Casey of
606 Spruce Street, Wilmington, a cousin of Demesse and his closest
relative in this country, told me of a conversation with Dr. Lawrence
J. Rigney, whom she called into the case.
"He said there
were typhoid germs in the body." she explained, "but that
John's lead poisoning didn't help him any."
Efforts to reach Dr.
Rigney were unsuccessful. Not he, but Dr. John R. Russo, a member of
the hospital staff, signed the death certificate. When asked about
the symptoms of the Demesse case he said he had no recollection of
it, and he reported several hours later that he could find no record
of it at the hospital. The death certificate gave no contributory
cause of death, nor was there any answer in the certificate to the
question: "Where was disease contracted if not at the place of
death?" This space was left blank.
Demesse was a
widower, 35 years old. At du Pont headquarters the point was
stressed that if poisoning had contributed to his death his relatives
would have demanded a settlement.
Death
After Three Attacks.
The first tetraethyl
poisoning of medical record was that of Harry A. Zanes, now 53 years
old, who lives at 97 I Street, in Carney's Point, an industrial town
owned by the du Ponts adjoining Deep Water. He became ill on Sept.
9, 1923, and went to the emergency hospital maintained by the du
Ponts on their reservation of six square miles across the Delaware
River from Wilmington, where the chemical and smokeless powder plants
are grouped. After treatment he went back to work, but a week later
had to go home. He couldn't eat, and on the rare occasions when he
slept he suffered from frightful nightmares. On Sept. 19 he became
violent and two trained nurses were assigned to care for him.
"The patient
has twitching muscular contractions," the nurses recorded:
"respiration rapid, pulse shallow," And a little later:
"Patient's head is thrown back rigidly: thinks some one is after
him to kill him." And the: "Patient's pupils dilated;
grinning and gritting teeth." A little later he was put into a
straitjacket after he became so violent he could not be held in bed.
Zanes was ill three
months and was under the care of Dr. A. R. Lynch, then a member of
the medical staff on the reservation. When Zanes was able to work
again he was assigned for a time to another plant, but returned to
tetraethyl production and was poisoned again. In September of last
year it happened a third time. These were much slighter attacks,
although the man became delirious.
"The last time
he didn't know it was lead he was working with." said Mrs.
Zanes, "and Dr. Lynch raised a stink about it at the plant."
The testimony of
nearly all the persons I saw, however, was that the du Ponts
exercised every precaution possible to safeguard their employees from
the deadly stuff they were handling.
First
Fatality of Old Employee.
Frank W. (Happy)
Durr, 37 years old, who had worked for the du Ponts since he was a
lad of 12, was the first employee to succumb. The was ill only a
short while and died in a straitjacket on Sept. 21 1923, at his home
in Penns Grove. There was no story about it in his home paper, and
none elsewhere, although the Penns Grove Record displayed in a
half-column account on the first page the facts about Otto J.
(Snapper) Barkdull who was accidentally killed by electricity in the
plant two days after Durr's death.
Thomas C. Sumerill,
editor of The Record, said he did not remember the circumstances. "I
guess the reason we didn't print anything about Durr's death was
because we couldn't get it." he explained. "They suppress
things about the lead plant at Deep Water. Whatever we print we pick
up from the workmen."
Durr's widow who
lives now with here mother at Woodstown, ten miles east of Penns
Grove, told me that Barkdull had worked at he plant only two months,
whereas Durr had been employed by the du Ponts for twenty-five years.
At that time the du
Ponts were producing tetraethyl lead in what has been a dye works.
In July 1924 there was a death from poisoning, another in August,
another in October. Work was already underway on a five-story brick
structure 85x150 feet in size, to be opened on Jan. 1 of this year.
Special
Care for the Afflicted.
All the men who died
and who were on the tetraethyl force were classified in the death
certificates as "dye workers" or "dye operators."
The reservation known as "the dye works" is in fact, aside
from the powder mills (where 25,00 men were employed at the peak
during the war in the production of smokeless powder) a congeries of
poison plants. Phosgene and chlorine gases as well as toxic benzol
series, are manufactured there.
In the old
tetraethyl plant there was a series of explosions and fires which
occurred from chemical reactions while the autoclaves, huge mixing
vats, were being emptied or cleaned. From these there were no
deaths, but there were many injuries. C. D. Porch, superintendent of
the plant, was himself badly burned and some of the chemists required
medical treatment. Arrangements were made with the Salem (N. J.)
Memorial Hospital, to which the du Ponts give annual contributions,
to care for patients from Deep Water, and such cases have been its
chief source of revenue. An executive of "the dye works"
is on the hospital's Board of Managers
All the men who died
in 1924, and one in 1925 were under treatment at this hospital. They
were hard to manage on account of their violence, and the du Ponts,
in addition to paying all medical expenses and providing for the
families, sent male nurses to attend and restrain the patients.
An official of the
hospital told me that Joseph Cianci, the victim in July, a man of
great strength, had actually by his insane violence overturned the
bed to which he was strapped; but Miss Hanna B. Harris,
Superintendent, denied this.
"I've seen him
actually lift the bed three or four inches off the floor by his
struggles," she said, "but I'm sure he was never as bad as
that."
Miss Harris did not
admit at first that Frank Hanley's death in August was due to
tetraethyl poisoning.
"He had an
ulcer of the stomach and underwent an operation." she
explained. But when she was told that the death certificate specified
"acute intoxication lead tetraethyl" she was silent but
later admitted it. As a fact the man escaped some time after the
operation form the hospital to the street and was caught there. At
du Pont headquarters it was admitted that this was a case of
poisoning.
Sim Jones, negro
janitor at "The House of the Butterflies." work old shoes
and absorbed the poison through his feet. It is fatal if inhaled or
taken through the skin in sufficient quantities. In all, Miss Harris
said, forty-eight cases were treated at Salem. Sim Jones was the
last to die there in 1924.
Thought Danger
Averted.
Jones died on Oct.
20, about the time the series of deaths in the Standard Oil plant at
Bayway centered public attention on the startling consequences of
tetraethyl poisoning An official of the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation
said publicly that the du Ponts had been having trouble too; and
Irénée du Pont, President of the E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company,
issued on Oct. 30, ten days after Sim Jones died, the following
statement:
Tetraethyl lead, which the du Pont Company is manufacturing on a
commercial scale, and which is reported as the cause of the recent
unfortunate accident at the Bayway plant of the Standard Oil Company
should not be confused with ethyl gas, an improved motor fuel which
contains less than one-tenth of 1 per cent of tetraethyl lead.
Tetraethyl lead is poisonous, and its manufacture involves risk but
no more than many chemicals manufactured and used in enormously
greater amounts.
The du Pont Company, during the experimental period experienced much
trouble with men becoming poisoned even to the extent of fatalities.
During the past year of production, when more than 100 men have been
employed continuously, the difficulty has diminished steadily. In
the past several months, under full production, only slight
difficulties have been encountered. Experience has taught the
necessary protection, both in plant and medical care.
We find that workmen
cumulatively poisoned by this material invariably indicate it in the
incipient stages, before any harm is done, by a marked symptom.
Doctors in the employ of the company continually make tests on
workers engaged in this process.
Later
Precautions Futile.
In "the past
several months" to which Mr. du Point referred as causing
"slight difficulties," there had been three deaths. There
were no more fatalities until the following February, after work had
begun in the new plant, where special precautions had been taken. In
that month three workers died.
A change was made in
the process of manufacture. Prior to this the ethyl for the compound
had been introduced in the form of ethyl bromide; but the bromine
required for this ingredient is costly to manufacture and difficult
to procure in quantities sufficient for such commercial operations as
the du Ponts had in view. The chemists decided to try ethyl chloride
instead. Chlorine, a greenish-yellow and extremely poisonous gas,
can be manufactured in huge quantities.
Frederick W.
DeFiebre, a worker, 21 years old, was the first to die on Feb. 21,
from poisoning in the new plant. To the Salem Hospital this is an
ambulance run of but twenty minutes, and Dr. Harry W. Lee, chief
surgeon of the du Pont staff at Deep Water, rushed the patient
thither for treatment.
Even before this
death Robert F. Huntsinger, 35 years old, had become ill and had
insisted on going to his home .... nty miles away in ... He lived
there at ... When he became violently insane Dr. E. C. Lyon who was
treating him and who is the county physician took him to the
Bridgeton Hospital where it was found that the patient's condition
was such he would not be cared for. Then he was taken to the
Cumberland County Hospital for the Insane where six men were required
at times to restrain him. He died there Feb. 16 two days later. Dr.
Lee went from Deep Water to help Dr. Lyon attend the patient.
A reporter for a
Bridgeton newspaper asked the county physician whether he would ask
for an inquest. "No," said Dr. Lyon, "it was not an
accident. It was an occupational disease, and there is no occasion
to call in the Coroner."
Plant
Closed Soon Afterward.
Dr. Lyon, who
repeated this statement to me, was warm in his praise of the du Ponts
for the care they exercised in behalf of their employees. The facts
about the death were printed in the Bridgeton newspapers, and the
inquiries were made regarding it at du Pont headquarters. A
statement was issued by the publicity department in which after
giving the facts of his illness, it was said:
"Meanwhile the
company, because of his illness and the illness of Fred W. Fiebre
[DeFiebre], a laborer who later died, has shut down the plain to make
modifications to insure greater manufacturing safety. * * * The du
Pont Company experienced trouble with men becoming poisoned in the
early stages of the manufacture of this chemical, but for a year
difficulties have diminished steadily and for the past several
months, under full production, only slight trouble had been
encountered until these recent fatal illnesses occurred."
The plant had, as a
fact, been closed by order of Dr. Andrew F. McBride of Paterson,
chief of the New Jersey State Labor Commission. Dr. McBride had been
conducting a State-wide inquiry into the manufacture, use and
transportation of tetraethyl lead. In the latter part of November he
reported to Governor Silzer that no more of the poison should be
manufactured.
The plant was closed
five weeks before Dr. McBride gave permission to reopen it. Meanwhile
the du Ponts spent $60,000 making mechanical adjustments and
installing a new ventilating system, whereby warmed and moistened air
within the plant is changed every forty seconds in order to reduce
the danger.
Two
Deaths After Plant Closed.
The last fatalities
were of a millwright and his helper, who were poisoned while making
some repairs and died after the plant was closed. These were James
Connell, who died at his home in Wilmington, and Loring M. Boody, who
died at Carney's Point, on the du Pont reservation.
Boody, the helper,
was attended by Dr. Lee of the du Pont staff, and the death was
attributed in part to uremic poisoning. The day before Boody's death
Connell went home ill, and died on March 27. In regard to both these
cases the du Pont Publicity Bureau gave out items to the Wilmington
daily newspapers which are owned by the du Ponts.
Regarding the four
deaths which have occurred this year, therefore, there has been
scattering publicity. The fact of Huntsinger's death at Bridgeton
was reported in the New York newspapers. But even before these
deaths occurred there were persistent rumors of trouble at Deep
Water; and last November it was reported and printed that there had
been nine deaths, although at that time there had been but four.
C. K. Weston, who is
at the head of the du Pont Publicity Bureau, said that the earlier
deaths were not treated as news because, until after the Bayway
tragedy, there was no public interest in such occurrences.
Dangers
Soon Revealed.
"The complete
list of deaths from the Deep Water plant is now in the hands of Dr.
McBride," he added. "We have told the facts and it is
absurd to say that the du Ponts have suppressed anything, or that
they subsidize hospitals. As a matter of custom they contribute
small sums to all the hospitals which are near their plants and which
are likely to be asked to treat patients. The contribution this year
to Salem Hospital was only $500; but, of course, in addition to that
the company pays, and pays well, for the treatment of its patients.
"Our people
themselves did not know about this disease at first, but the
physicians quickly learned to cope with it. We began manufacturing
tetraethyl lead about three years ago, and one of the doctors said to
me once that he had never known an industrial malady which flew the
red flag so quickly.
"The du Ponts
are well known for their interest in their employees. They spare no
expense to protect the health and lives of their men, and when one is
hurt or loses his life, the company pays, in New Jersey and every
other State where it has properties, higher compensation and pension
rates than the law requires. It is a fact that we have a great deal
of trouble inducing the men to be cautious. We have to protect them
against themselves."
Mr. Weston had heard
of the workers' name for the plant.
"Some of them
drew pictures of butterflies on the walls of the plant." he
said. "This disease is somewhat like delirium tremens. Instead
of seeing snakes the men see butterflies."
Danger
in Gas, Not Gasoline.
Since production
began 300,000,000 gallons of ethyl gasoline have been distributed in
twenty-eight States, from 12,000 filling stations with no record of
poisoning or ill-health from its use, according to Mr. Weston. The
name "looney gas" is deceptive, in his view, in that it may
apply to the ethyl gasoline instead of the fumes from tetraethyl
lead.
Dr. Lynch, former
chief surgeon at Deep Water, is now practicing medicine at Wilmington
and occasionally has tetraethyl cases, He was reluctant to discuss
the disease because he is no longer associated with the du Ponts, and
said he had refrained from publishing a paper dealing with his year's
experience in their service for the same reason.
"In several
hundred cases which I treated during that first year," he said,
"I did not lose one. Durr, who died while I was there, was
under the care of his family physician. I had the first cases of the
disease ever known. Although it is nervous and mental, neurologists
had no clinical background for it. It was a brand new challenge to
medical skill.
"We found that
nightmares were the first symptom and that these were followed by
insomnia. Then came restlessness and inability to eat. Sometimes a
patient lost as much as thirty pounds in a few weeks. The blood
pressure fell. Frequently they were nauseated. Then came
hallucinations. There was no 'wrist drop,' none of the symptoms of
the well-known industrial lead poisoning. In the later stages some of
the men because suicidal and had to be prevented from destroying
themselves."
Charles Hendricks,
employed as a painter in the tetraethyl plant, was one worker who
tried to kill himself. He jumped from a ferry between Penns Grove
and Wilmington last April. He was delirious, and his weight had gone
down from 180 pounds to 135. Harry Baker, who was confined at the
Salem Hospital, jumped from a window while his male nurse was out of
the room, but was caught and returned to his bed. This incident came
to public attention and the patient was removed to a private
sanitarium at Gladwyn, Pa., where the du Ponts are paying his bills
in addition to a bi-weekly allowance to his wife. He is still under
treatment.
Precautions
in Distribution.
At first tetraethyl
lead was shipped
