Accidental ethyl mercury poisoning with nervous system, skeletal muscle, and myocardium injury.

Four case reports are presented of patients who ate the meat of a hog inadvertently fed seed treated with fungicides containing ethyl mercury chloride. The clinical, electrophysiological, and toxicological, and in two of the patients the pathological data, showed that this organic mercury compound has a very high toxicity not only for the brain, but also for the spinal motoneurones, peripheral nerves, skeletal muscles, and myocardium.

Nephropathy in chronic lead poisoning.

This paper presents a study of renal function in 102 patients with lead poisoning admitted to the Occupational Diseases Clinic in Bucharest during the past 10 years; nearly half the patients had no history of lead colic. Every possible cause of renal damage, other than lead, was excluded by a careful differential diagnosis. Renal function was investigated by repeated determinations of blood urea, creatinine and uric acid, urea clearance, and endogenous creatinine clearance tests.

Studies on the chemical forms of urinary lead.

Lead in urine has been determined by an ashing technique to give total lead and by a standard coprecipitation technique to give precipitable lead. In 44 normal subjects values obtained by both methods were the same. In 72 subjects exposed to lead, of whom 57 had clinical lead poisoning, the precipitable lead was significantly less than the total lead.