Home › Medicine › Diseases of Females (Painters and other artificers)

Diseases of Females (Painters and other artificers)

painters, and other artificers, who work in trades | great apprehensions of being suffocated. There which expose them to similar hazards from the same cause; to be observed by them at their return to the exercise of their former occupation. 1. To maintain the strictest temperance, particularly respecting distilled spirits, which had better be altogether forborne. 2. To pay the strictest attention to cleanliness; and never suffer paint to remain upon their hands; and particularly never to eat their meals, or go to rest, without washing their hands and face with soap, perfectly clean. 3. Not to eat or drink in the room or place wherein they work; and much less to suffer any food or drink to remain unused, even for the shortest space of time, in any part of a room while painting, or where color stands; and not to work on an empty stomach. 4. As the clothes of persons in this line (painters, particularly) are generally much soiled with color, it is recommended for them to perform their work in frocks of ticking, which may be frequently washed, and conveniently laid aside when the workmen go to their meals, and again put on when they resume their work. 5. Every business which can, in these branches, should be performed with gloves on their hands.

Painters, in performing clean light work, would find gloves an inconvenience; but to avoid the evil here mentioned, the handle of the brush should be often scraped. Woollen or worsted gloves are recommended, as they may and should be often washed, after being soiled with the paint, or even with much rubbing against the metal. 6. Caution is necessary, in mixing, or even in unpacking, the dry colors, that the fine powder do not get into their mouths, or be drawn in by the breath. A crape covering over the face might be of service; but care should be taken to turn always the same side of the crape towards the face, and to clean or wash it frequently. 7. All artificers should avoid touching lead when hot; and this caution is especially necessary for printers or compositors, who have often lost the use of their limbs by handling the types when drying by the fire, after being washed. 8. Glaziers' putty should never be made or moulded by the hand. An iron pestle and mortar would work the ingredients together, at least equally as well, and without hazard. It is necessary in working putty to handle it, nor is it usually pernicious. Cleanliness is therefore the best recommendation. 9. If any persons, in any of the above employ ments, should feel pain in the bowels, with costiveness, they should immediately take 20 drops of laudanum, and when the pain is abated 2 tablespoonsful of castor oil, or an ounce of Epsom salts, dissolved in warm chamomile tea. If this does not succeed, a pint or two pints of warm soapsuds should be thrown up as a clyster. 10. As a preventive, ten or fifteen drops of aromatic sulphuric acid (elixir of vitriol), is likely to be of service, if taken daily.