- Author
- Peters, H. | Croft, W. A. | Woolson, E. A. | Darcey, B. A. | Olson, M. A.
- Title
- Seasonal Arsenic Exposure from Burning Chromium-Copper-Arsenate-Treated Wood.
- Journal
- JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 251, No. 18, 2393-2396, May 11, 1984
- Keywords
- wood | stoves | toxic hazards
- Abstract
- All eight membes of a rural Wisconsin family experienced recurring neurological and medical illness over three years, especially during the winter months. Arsenic, in concentrations of 12 to 87 ppm, was noted in the hair of the mother and father, and analysis of hair and fingernails of all family members demonstrated pathological leveles of arsenic. For four years the five-room home had been heated with a small wood stove in which outdoor or marine plywood and wood remnants had been preferentially burned. Stove ashes that contained more than 1,000 ppm of asentic contaminated the living area, and the ratio of copper, chromium, and arsenic pentoxide in this ash matched the ratio used in he chromium-copper-arsenate-treated wood.