oeCUPATIONAL EXPOSURES lN PETROLEUM REFINING

Petroleum oil was used for many centuries in Egypt, China, Mesopotamia and Persia for heating, lighting, roadmaking and building. Small accumulations of oil were reported at Pechelbronn in Alsace in 1498 and in Poland in 1506, and Marco Polo noted 'oil springs' at Baku on the Caspian Sea in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Raleigh, in 1595, reported the existence of the Trinidad Pitch Lake, and there are accounts of Franciscan visits to 'oil springs' in New York in 1632. Similarly, in 1748, a Russian traveller to the Americas commented on sources of oil in Pennsylvania. Oil was produced in Burma from hand-dug wells in substantial quantities by the end of the eighteenth century (Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies, 1983).