Carbon disulphide poisoning in viscose rayon factories.

The manufacture of rayon by the viscose process exposes workers to the hazards of carbon disulphide (CS2) poisoning. When the viscose industry was started the toxicity of carbon disulphide was scarcely known among manufacturers, and the processes used were primitive; this resulted in many cases of CS2 poisoning in all those countries where viscose plants had been established. Since then, technicians, besides trying to increase and improve production, have had to solve the problem of protecting workers against the hazards of CS2. Italy was one of the first countries to undertake the production of rayon and staple yam by the viscose process. Until 1936 Italy was one of the leading European producers of rayon and staple. This industry was afterwards greatly developed in other countries and Italy now ranks third; the output in 1951, however, was 137,000 tons, that is, one-fifteenth of the world's production (Viviani and Graziano, 1952). The viscose industry in Italy employs at present over 20,000 workers; unfortunately, there are still cases of carbon disulphide poisoning, but since the beginning of the industry the clinical features of the intoxication have undergone a marked change. The greatest expansion in the viscose industry in Italy was from 1924 to 1927, during which period production was trebled, increasing from 8,000 to 26,000 tons. In those years the limited preventive measures and the frequent modifications of processes must have caused many cases of intoxication, but, since CS2 poisoning was not a compensatable occupational disease until 1934, we have no available data as to its incidence. In 1933, Ranelletti collected in a monograph 80 published cases of carbon disulphide poisoning which had occurred in Italy. The incidence of symptoms