The hazards presented by arsenic are well known, and the notoriety gained by its use as a poison in previous years has affected attitudes towards the commercial production and employment of a very useful substance. It is not widely realized that Britain was the world's largest producer of arsenic around the turn of the century. Production has now ceased and any reserves that still exist will probably remain unexploited, despite the modern requirement for arsenic by the wood treatment and microelectronics industries. This demand is being satisfied by mines in other countries which use essentially the same refining process as that employed in England a century ago. This paper compares what is known about conditions of work and health in the English arsenic industry then with modern conditions at a Chilean production plant, and shows how the perception and management of the risks involved in a hazardous operation stems from the complex inter-relationship of technological, social, political and economic factors. In particular, the results of this survey explain why, in many previous surveys, a poor correlation was found between airborne and urinary arsenic measurements. Both measures appear to be strongly influenced by the particular type of work undertaken and this can be related to the chemical form of the arsenic present. Within each job category, the most important factor affecting their correlation is the difference in use of respiratory protection equipment.

译文

砷带来的危害是众所周知的,在过去几年中,砷被用作毒药而声名狼藉,这影响了人们对商业生产和使用一种非常有用的物质的态度。人们并未普遍意识到,在本世纪初,英国是世界上最大的砷生产国。尽管木材处理和微电子行业对砷的现代需求,但现在已经停止生产,任何仍然存在的储量都可能尚未开发。其他国家的矿山正在满足这一需求,这些矿山使用的精炼工艺与一个世纪前在英国使用的精炼工艺基本相同。本文将英国砷行业的工作条件和健康状况与智利生产工厂的现代条件进行了比较,并展示了对危险操作中涉及的风险的感知和管理如何源于复杂的相互关系技术,社会,政治和经济因素。特别是,这项调查的结果解释了为什么在以前的许多调查中,空气中的砷测量和尿中的砷测量之间的相关性很差。这两种措施似乎都受到所进行的特定工作类型的强烈影响,这可能与存在的砷的化学形式有关。在每个工作类别中,影响其相关性的最重要因素是呼吸保护设备的使用差异。

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