Word: rayon
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Swaying and trembling, he stood before the judge and told his troubles-a tall, gaunt man, so thin he couldn't sit without a pillow. For 19 years he had worked in the Marcus Hook plant of American Viscose Co., largest rayon manufacturers in the U. S. Three years ago he began to feel sick and dizzy; then "things got kind of smoky." His legs shook, his fingers stiffened into claws, he had "to sit down and slide downstairs," and at night he was yanked out of sleep by terrific spasms of his chest muscles. Finally...
This was the story told in Philadelphia last week by John Nichols to Workmen's Compensation Referee John Alessandroni. The hearing climaxed a series of State and medical investigations of carbon disulfide poisoning in the rayon industry, brought to public attention a picture of industrial disease as lurid as the 1936 silicosis and radium poison scandals. Referee Alessandroni decided in favor of John Nichols, but Nichols got no money, for the new Pennsylvania occupational disease law did not go into effect until Jan. 1, 1938-one day after he left...
Present at the hearing were famed Philadelphia Toxicologists Max Trumper and Samuel Tobias Gordy, authors of the first comprehensive medical report of carbon disulfide poisoning ever printed in the U. S. Throughout the country, they said, there are 19 rayon companies which use carbon disulfide. Some of them, like Du Pont at Wilmington, Del., take special pains to guard their employes from poisonous C52 fumes. American Viscose Co. cut down the hazard with a new ventilating system designed by Philip Drinker of Harvard. But hundreds of workers throughout the U. S. have been permanently disabled...
...chemists found a better way, and in 1930 Tennessee Eastman's first cellulose acetate unit began turning out the raw material for "safety film." That done, the chemists turned their test tubes on acetate yarn, a year later had a factory producing the synthetic yarn for rayon dresses, other fabrics...
...year with Eastman, he has built his plant to 82 buildings, 372 acres, 5,000 workers (second to the Kodak Park Works, Rochester, N. Y.'s biggest plant). Last year his big plant produced some 50,000,000 Ibs. of cellulose acetate, of which one-half went into rayon yarn, one-eighth into Tenite I & II, the rest into film, wrapping sheets, lacquers. Gross: some $25,000,000. For Tennessee Eastman pioneering has paid...