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324 CHEMISTRY AND TECHNOLOGY OF EXPLOSIVES

(2) Staying in bed for one or two days.

(3) A special diet, consisting of milk, milk dishes, fruit and vegetables, and

beverages such as tea and coffee.

Where jaundice occurs clinical treatment is necessary. The patient should be

given milk, starting with small portions increasing to one liter daily.

Young people are far more liable to TNT poisoning than adults. For the first

four working weeks some people exhibit a considerable resistance to poisoning,

others fall ill within the fifth and the fifteenth week of work.

Here are the principal precautionary measures which should be strictly observed.

(1) The age of workers in TNT factories should not be below 18 years.

(2) All workers should be submitted to medical examination before starting

work, and subsequently should be examined every week.

(3) Workers should be protected against dust, and as far as possible against

skin contact with TNT. Working places should be adequately ventilated.

(4) Special working clothes put on in the changing room. They should fit

tightly at the wrists, and neck, to prevent the penetration of dust. Hair should be

covered with a cap or other form of protective head dress. This protective clothing

should be washed every week.

(5) Personal cleanliness is imperative. All workers should wash before meals

and before going home.

(6) Before starting work they should drink a pint or so of milk. Eating fresh

vegetables should be recommended.

(7) Workers in TNT factories should be transferred periodically to other work,

out of contact with TNT.

Norwood [124a] suggested using a special liquid soap to remove TNT from

the skin. The liquid soap should contain 5-10% K 2 SO 4 and 5-10% of a wetting

agent.

There is no doubt that TNT is toxic to man. Experience gathered in the World

War II has supplied statistical data which confirm this. Branslavljevic [125] gives

the following data. Out of 66 workmen employed in a Yugoslavian factory in the

section where ammunition was filled with TNT, 42 persons showed symptoms of

poisoning such as cyanosis, pallor and jaundice.

Liver damage was confirmed in 19 workmen, another 19 suffered from anaemia,

and in 5 a combination of both conditions was found.

Crawford [126] recorded 24 cases of aplastic anaemia in Great Britain, all of

them the result of exposure to TNT during World War II.

Statistical data referring to the World War II reported for some thousand mild

cases of poisoning by TNT in the U.S.A. apart from 379 more serious cases and 22
fatal ones. Eight men died of toxic hepatitis, 13 of aplastic anaemia and 1 of a

combination of both (McConnell and Flinn [127]). The same authors reported that

at a TNT dust concentration in the air amounting to 3 mg/m^3 , distinct poisoning

symptoms were observed. According to these authors, the maximum permissible
concentration of TNT in the air is 1.5 mg/m^3.