In the Beginning

This chapter examines the nature of viscose manufacturing and the known or suspected toxic effects of carbon disulfide. It begins with a history of carbon disulfide, which was first synthesized in 1796 by a German mining and metallurgical chemist named Wilhelm August Lampadius. Soon the potent anesthetic effects of carbon disulfide were revealed in various experiments. An outbreak of disease due to carbon disulfide in a prerevolutionary Russian viscose factory was an important early report of worker ill health and only the second one specific to the nascent viscose rayon industry. In 1892 it was discovered that carbon disulfide was uniquely capable of liquefying cellulose without fundamentally changing its structure, which became the basis for producing artificial silk. However, treating cellulose with large quantities of carbon disulfide was a highly dangerous process. This chapter considers the evidence showing that viscose rayon caused worker disease and death in factories.