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Glass Workers

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Kanerva’s Occupational Dermatology

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Glass is made from silica with the addition of other materials to improve the physical properties for specific uses. This chapter outlines a brief history of glass making and outlines some of the historical causes of dermatological disease. Current data is presented from The Health and Occupation Reporting (THOR) network.

Glass is made of silica, derived from sand, flint, or quartz, fused at high temperatures with borates or phosphates. It is a vitreous material in which molecular units have a random arrangement but sufficient cohesion to produce rigidity. The exact origins of the process of glass making are uncertain. It is thought that it first appeared in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC possibly as a result of experimenting with glazes for pottery and used as an alternative to gemstones as it could be colored and cut.

By 1500 BC, bottles were produced by shaping the glass around a ball of clay and dung at the end of a metal rod and sculptures by casting in a mold. Mosaics...

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of Manchester, UK, for supplying current THOR data on the reported incidence of occupational dermatoses among glass workers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Leeds Centre for Dermatology, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, Chapel Allerton Hospital, Leeds, UK

    Faheem Latheef & Dr Mark S. Wilkinson

Authors
  1. Faheem Latheef
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  2. Dr Mark S. Wilkinson
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark S. Wilkinson .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Dermatology, University of Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Niedersachsen, Germany

    Swen Malte John

  2. Department of Dermato-allergology, Gentofte Hospital, Hellerup, Denmark

    Jeanne Duus Johansen

  3. Dept. of Dermatology and Allergology, VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Thomas Rustemeyer

  4. Dept. of Dermatology and Allergology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Thüringen, Germany

    Peter Elsner

  5. Department of Dermatology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Howard I. Maibach

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Latheef, F., Wilkinson, M.S. (2018). Glass Workers. In: John, S., Johansen, J., Rustemeyer, T., Elsner, P., Maibach, H. (eds) Kanerva’s Occupational Dermatology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40221-5_158-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40221-5_158-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40221-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40221-5

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