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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 731

There were a good many others. There was an ingredient that they put in the paint when they were going to spray it and they began to mix paint a great deal. That was called benzol. It was a very useful solvent - wonderful solvent. Illness from it began to come to our attention in the Industrial Board with claims made by workers that they were made sick by the fumes of the spray paint which they used in painting automobiles in garages and automobile factories, but particularly in garages in New York State where they did repair and refinishing jobs. We never had had such claims before. Certainly nothing of the sort was in the English act, because they had never had any such disease at that time. Benzol was just coming into use as a solvent, as a very fine and useful solvent. Spray painting just accentuated the exposure of the individuals to it.

This was not covered by the Workmen's Compensation Law. We had recourse to the industrial code system by which we could adopt a code prohibiting the use of certain chemicals or certain substances, or regulating and controlling the use of them in the interest of the life, health, safety and welfare of the workers under the New York State law. After a long struggle we got to the point where we partly prohibited the use of benzol. It is so useful a solvent that it was almost impossible from the point of view of common, intellectual





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