Abstract
During the past ten years an appreciation of the peculiar properties of beryllium led to its utilization in a variety of industrial processes and products. 1 Unfortunately, in occasional persons exposed to a beryllium-contaminated atmosphere an illness developed characterized by a distinctive clinical course and a generalized granular pattern seen on roentgen examination of the lungs. 2 Despite the failure to produce generalized or pulmonary chronic granulomatosis 3 by exposure of experimental animals to beryllium compounds, clinical observations continue to emphasize the probable causative significance of zinc beryllium silicate in this disease. 4 Characteristic histologic changes and the presence of abnormal quantities of beryllium in the tissues and urine of such patients furnish further presumptive evidence incriminating these beryllium phosphors. Similar detailed observations in persons exposed to beryllium oxide and beryllium alloys 1a tend to single out beryllium as the principal known causative factor. Recent observations 5 that typical histologic
Published Version
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