Leaded Gasoline

Spattering flurries of lead flying through city streets in war-time would constitute an obvious menace to public health. But what if in peacetime city streets were filled with clouds of lead, not bullets, but fine powdery particles mixed in with the whirling gutter-dust, lead deposited by the exhaust-pipes of motors burning gasoline treated with tetraethyl lead (1:1,500) to eliminate motor "knocking"? Would that constitute a health menace?

Some months ago, when five handlers of tetraethyl lead employed by the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, went raving mad and died in straitjackets (TIME, Nov. 10, 1924, SCIENCE), the health menace in manufacturing "ethyl gasoline" was recognized. The plant was shut down; the sale of the new gasoline was discontinued. Health authorities investigated also the dangers of handling the fuel and the dangers of encountering exhaust fumes from motors.

These investigators reported that all was well. Care would have to be taken in handling the potent tetraethyl lead, but garage workers and people in the street were safe enough. Experiments at Pittsburgh on animals had shown that the deposition of lead from an ethyl gas exhaust was very small.

But scientists at Yale, Harvard and Columbia were far from satisfied. "Inconclusive, premature," they called the Pittsburgh tests (TIME, May 11). So U. S. Surgeon General Hugh S. Gumming called a conference of manufacturers, scientists and health officers, the sense of which was that a thoroughgoing reinvestigation should be made. Dr. Gumming appointed a committee: Professor W. H. Howell of Johns Hopkins, chairman, and Drs. Julius Stieglitz (University of Chicago), Reid Hunt and David L. Edsall (Harvard University), C.E. A. Winslow (Yale University), W. S. Leathers (Vanderbilt University) and Albert J. Chesley (Minneapolis).

Last week this committee reported. It had examined 252 persons, both exposed and not exposed to leaded gasoline and its combusted fumes. Blood, fecal and muscular tests had been made, and a variety of clinical methods had been employed to estimate the amount of lead absorption or ingestion.

The findings were: No decisive indication of lead poisoning among chauffeurs or garage workers where leaded gasoline had been used for two or three years. Hence, no public menace in permitting the use and sale of leaded gasoline, providing four precautions are taken:

1) The blending of the fuel-- tetraethyl lead with gasoline--should be confined to as few central plants as possible.

2) The leaded gasoline should be colored, to distinguish it from plain gasoline and warn people not to use it for cleaning clothes, washing hands, etc.

3) Signs should be placed at filling stations warning customers that leaded gasoline is for use only in motor cars.

4) Study of the effects of leaded gasoline (and of carbon monoxide hazards in garages) should be continued, lest chronic degenerative diseases of unobvious character be setting in slowly.

Having no authority to set down or enforce regulations for distributing and handling gasoline, Surgeon General Gumming announced that ha would call a conference of health officials from all the States. Pending regulations, the Ethyl Gasoline Co., chief manufacturer of the new fuel, promised to cooperate upon resuming its sales.