First Aid Treatment of Electric Shock

The mode of death was determined in the 82 electrocutions as being either asphyxial or cardiac in type. Using the information obtained from the electrocutions, the functional response in the 7,724 electrical accidents was determined. From this, the relative success of the first aid treatments was decided.

External cardiac massage with mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration was a failure even when applied to the cases with ventricular fibrillation. Only four cases of recovery from ventricular fibrillation following electric shock are known. Mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration compared very unfavorably with the older manual methods.

It is recommended that the first aid treatment of electric shock be reevaluated. The recommended treatment should consist of two blows on the chest followed by a manual method of artificial respiration. In electric shock, external cardiac massage with mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration should not be recommended for use by first aid personnel.     

The LD50 and Chronic Toxicity of Reactor Terphenyls

Acute ingestion of reactor coolant terphenyls (HB-40) revealed LD₅₀ values of 17,500 mg/kg rat and 12,500 mg/kg mouse for nonirradiated coolant and 6,000 mg/kg mouse or rat for irradiated coolant. Chronic ingestion of the mixtures by mice produced mitochondrial changes in epithelial cells of proximal tubules, and at high doses these cells became necrotic as interstitial nephritis and scarring developed. The nephritis was irreversible and followed 16 weeks’ ingestion of 1,200 mg/kg nonirradiated HB-40 or 600 mg/kg irradiated coolant. Hepatic changes were observed only at the ultrastructural level where abundant smooth endoplasmic reticulum was seen. It appears that organic terphenyl coolants are potentially toxic when ingested in high doses. This could only occur as a result of chronic exposure at a level greatly in excess of that currently observed in the reactor working environment.     

Book reviews

Peacebuilding

Verification Technologies: The Case for Surveillance by Consent, By Bhupendra Jasani and Frank Barnaby, Berg Publishers, Leamington Spa, 1984, 135pp., £3.50 ISBN 0 907582 23 0.

Without The Bomb: Non‐Nuclear Defence Policies for Britain, By The Alternative Defence Commission, Paladin Books, London, 1985, 92pp., £1.95, ISBN 0 586 08527 0.

The State of The World's Children 1985. By James P. Grant. Published for UNICEF, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1985, 138pp., £3.50, $6.95, ISBN 0 19 828496 9.

Nuclear war: effects and threats Guide to the Effects of a Nuclear Disaster on Agriculture, Farmers for a Nuclear Free Future, Moretonhampstead (Devon), 1984, 56pp., £1.00.

The Postman of Nagasaki, By Peter Townsend, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1985, 173pp., £1.95, ISBN 0 140081 364.

Children and The Threat of Nuclear War. By Ruth Davies, Occasional Paper No. 8, Centre for Peace Studies, Lancaster, 1984, 27pp., £2.00, ISBN 0 946357 16 1.

If You Give a Damn About Life, By Harold Freeman, Dodd, Mead &; Co., New York, 1985, 88pp., $3.95, ISBN 0 396 08615 2.

Starting wars

How War Might Spread To Europe. By Miroslav Nincic. A SIPRI publication. Taylor &; Francis, London and Philadelphia, 1985, 109pp., £9.00, $16.00, ISBN 0 85066 302 4.

The March of Folly. By Barbara Tuchman. Abacus, New York, 1984, 447pp., $18.95, ISBN 0 394 52777 1.     

Asbestos Workers in Singapore

A survey of 114 employees exposed to asbestos in a Singapore plant revealed no subjects with major disability or advanced radiographic changes. Basal crepitations in nine subjects were found to have no association with indices of chronic bronchitis such as history of cough and sputum, productive cough upon request, and smoking. These indices tended to be related to the presence of other adventitious sounds, recorded in 14 patients. Ventilatory capacity changes occurred in the direction of a restrictive ventilatory defect in the group with crepitations, and an obstructive defect in the group with other adventitious sounds. Simple clinical and functional studies can be used to define three groups within the total population of exposed asbestos workers: (1) normal (2) presumptive diagnosis of chronic bronchitis, and (3) presumptive diagnosis of mild respiratory abnormality consistent with “mild” or “early” asbestosis, deserving at least close surveillance.