Skin absorption of toluene, styrene, and xylene by man.

We have investigated the skin absorption of liquid toluene and of solutions of toluene in water by the methods we used for ethylbenzene (Dutkiewicz and Tyras, I967). The absorption rate of liquid toluene was I4-23 mg./cm.2/hr in I0 estimations on nine subjects. Absorption of toluene from an aqueous solution was proportional to the concentration (Figure). For equal concentrations the rate was only a little less than that of ethylbenzene. Very short exposure of the hands to liquid toluene (a few minutes) or more prolonged exposure (about one hour) to water saturated with toluene causes the absorption of as much toluene as an eight-hour exposure to the maximum allowable concentration of o I mg. /litre of air.2