Medicine: Leaded Gasoline

Spattering flurries of lead flying through city streets in war-time would constitute an obvious menace to public health. But what if in peacetime city streets were filled with clouds of lead, not bullets, but fine powdery particles mixed in with the whirling gutter-dust, lead deposited by the exhaust-pipes of motors burning gasoline treated with tetraethyl lead (1:1,500) to eliminate motor "knocking"? Would that constitute a health menace?

Some months ago, when five handlers of tetraethyl lead employed by the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, went raving mad and died in straitjackets (TIME,...

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