Mail Pieces Research Articles

Further research into the construction of mail garments

In a previous article the writer described the technique used by the armourers of the past to make mail. Very little is known about the craftsmen who made it. It is not yet possible to date pieces of mail with the same degree of accuracy with which pieces of plate armour can be dated. There are several reasons for this lack of knowledge. In the first place mail is a structure which does not lend itself to the use of armourer's marks, and though pieces are marked in one way and another, experts are so far unable to trace them to their sources. Secondly, a mail garment is not necessarily restricted to one known wearer, but because of its stretching and contracting qualities will fit almost anyone reasonably well. Thirdly, at the time when mail-making was at its height the armourer's craft had not developed to the same extent and had not yet acquired the social and decorative importance which it was to have in later years. Thus the mail-maker was more obscure and his work had no characteristic sculptural quality by which it could be recognized. On the other hand, in the early days of armour, mail garments were few and very valuable with the result that they frequently changed hands, the stretching quality permitting their use by different owners. Lastly, mail suffers from rust because it exposes a vast surface of metal to the air. When it is worn the constant friction between one ring and another wears it out comparatively quickly even if it is never permitted to get rusted. For this reason the rings in mail shirts are often thinner round the hips than on shoulders, chest, or back. Most of the early mail has been destroyed by wear and time and only fragments remain. It is not possible to say with certainty to what type of garment these fragments once belonged.

DERMATITIS FROM SEMECARPUS ANACARDIUM (BHILAWANOL OR THE MARKING NUT)

These cases are reported because of the novelty of the mode of spread of a contact dermatitis and to report a plant irritant uncommon to the Western Hemisphere. Dermatitis affecting 16 persons developed among employees of one of the large government departments in Washington, and the Dermatoses Investigations Section was requested to investigate. A bottle in a sealed mailpouch, shipped from India by air, had become partially opened and its contents, a thick black oil, had contaminated various pieces of mail. The contaminating substance was labeled Bhilawanol Oil. REPORT OF CASES Three workers who were unpacking the pouch wiped the oil off the mail as well as they could. It was then distributed by a force of carriers and clerks numbering approximately 50. By evening a number of workers complained of itching and burning of their hands, arms and faces. Within twenty-four hours a vesicular eruption appeared on the exposed