Abstract
The present paper is to give a review of the recent studies of organic solvents : the studies of the post-war tendency of the researches of organic solvents in Japan have been checked up, the studies of the organic solvents for the last 6 years were carefully analysed with the helpful material from the reports made at the annual meetings of the Japan Association of Industrial Health, in the comparison with the overseas studies published in the Abstracts of Hygiene for these 5 years, and then the studies of organic solvents in the present Japan are discussed.
The variety of organic solvents reported for these 6 years in Japan is about 30 kinds and about 40 kinds in the other countries. The number, however, comes only to a small percentage of the total kinds which will possibly amount up to 450 at the least. It is urgently required for us to know the actual conditions about the amounts of consumption of the other solvents and the administrative control and security in use of them.
At present, in Japan we have the most numerous reports of toluene, those of trichloroethylene following, while in the other countries, the studies of carbon disulfide are the most, those of trichloroethylene following, and worthy of note are that there are considerable number of the studies of halogenated hydrocarbons.
In Japan, we have comparatively many studies of animal experiments, and accordingly are numerous the reports on the experimental researches made through biochemical method, of the methabolism of organic solvents and of the urinary metabolites, while in the other countries 85% of the reports for the last 5 years are those of the cases of poisoning and of the researches of the biological response through clinical method in the cases of working men.
The recent tendency shows that, in Japan, peripheral nervous system and central nervous system are considerably concerned as the possible indices of the biological response, and that in the other countries they are turning their increasing attentions to interbrain, autonomic nervous system and hormonal system as the indices.
