The morning news., 1897-01-03

first getting excited and then quieting
down or developing commissions.
A workman suffering from this form of
poisoning at first has a headache or neu-
ralgia, then confusion of vision, dizziness
and staggering or hesitating gait. He
may even have fits. He has pains in his
muscles, exalted sensibnity of skin, and
his mind becomes so excited that he fire.
quently commits acts of violence. If he
fails to sleep he is restless, has wild
dreams and nightmare. He frequently
commits suicide in this stage.
The second stage is profound weakness
and feebleness of intellect. He may be-
come blind deaf and paralyzed, or abso-
lutte idiotic.
AS is the case of most poisons. the men
who are constantly exposed to the effects
generally become proof against its infiu-
euce, but few men in every factory yield
to the poisonous gas and become disabled
But it is very hard to make workmen talk
about the dangers which are prevalent in
their own factories for fear of losing their
jobs.
The most startling symptoms sometimes
are seen among men who work in silver
Silver itself is not very soluble, and the
cases of silver poisoning are rare. In the
former times epilepsy was treated by
means of certain salts of silver After
keeping up the treatment for some
y
lepsy, strange alteration in the appear
ance of the patient used to occur
The silver, little by little, deposits itself
in the under layers of the skin until the
entire man became as blue as a piece of
Delft pottery. 1t became so marked that
these unfortunates became known as blue
men, and if all other business failed they
were enabled to earn a livelihood by ex-
hibiting in the dime museums, along with
tattooed ladies, leopard boys and other
strange examples of rare skin diseases.
A case of this sort was recently seen in
a Bohemian glass blower, who had been
taking silver solutions into his mouth to
color glass from the inside of the tube.
Not only his skin, but his tongue, gums
and entire mouth were blue.
Another strange disease, which indi-
Gates again the remarkable way in which
different chemicals appropriate special
parts of the body to make trouble when
the workman allows himself to become
affected, is phosphorus poisoning This is
common in match factories and all places
where phosphorus is manufactured. The
fumes of phosphorus seek out the Jaw
bone, usually through the medium of a
bad tooth or a cavity in the gun where a
tooth has been drawn. The jaw bone
simply goes to pieces and crumbles away,
undergoing what surgeons call necrosis.
No other part of the body seems to he
be persuaded to have their teeth kept in
good condition it can, as a rule, be avoid
ed. But like every other form of occu-
patton disease which can be avoided by
some simple precautions, the laborinS
men prefer to take their chances of not
catching" the disease rather than so to
a dentist or undergo some slight incon-
venience.
Many other occupations have strange
diseases connected with them not seen in
other walks of life. "Caisson disease" is
appearing again among the men who work
in the tunnels under the North and East
rivers, and cases OF it are from time to
time brought to the hospitals. Working
in a tunnel necessitates working under "A
heavy air pressure. II a man who is ovcr
heated from his labors goes directly out
from the compartment or caisson into the
outside air he is very likely to develop a
peculiar and dangerous affection of the
spinal cord, which results frequently in
absolute paralysis of the entire body.
The osculation which prevailed at the
Bernhardt fete must have been edifying.
After sardou had proposed his toast ITO
the great and good Sarah" Bernhardt