Abstract

Workers of electrolytic departments at the Novokuznetsk aluminum plant were found to suffer not only from fluorosis (28.2) per cent), but also from degenerative-dystrophic affection of the skeleton (87.7 per cent). The workers of a control group who were not exposed to a chronic action of fluorine compounds the degenerative-dystrophic lesions of the skeleton are encountered on much rarer occasions (58.1 per cent). In workers of the aluminum plant there prevailed the affection of joints in the upper extremities, largely of a symmetric nature. Of decisive influence on the development of degenerative-dystrophic lesions of the skeleton was the service-record at the plant. A careful statistical analysis of the frequency of skeletal degenerative-dystrophic lesions in workers with fluorosis and in those who only had to deal with fluorides showed fluorosis to be of no significance in the development of degenerative-dystrophic affections of the joints and the spine.

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