In the past five years, New Jersey has experienced the occurrence of fatal cases of occupational poisonings in new industrial diseases or in new forms of old diseases, which has called attention to the present inadequate method of compensating workmen through a schedule of specific diseases. This list of occupational diseases in New Jersey includes: anthrax; poisoning from phosphorus, benzol and its homologous, wood alcohol, lead, mercury, arsenic and chromium; caisson disease and, recently, radium necrosis.
The types of poisoning I shall discuss are tetra-ethyl lead and benzol poisoning and radium necrosis.
In 1923, two factories in New Jersey manufactured tetra-ethyl lead, a volatile liquid substance which is added to gasoline to give greater compression and hence more power to motors. The strength of this substance may be estimated from the fact that one gallon of tetra-ethyl lead is added to 5,000 gallons of gasoline to make the proper solution