We have recently had the opportunity of studying an unusual type of corneal lesion, presumably due to butanol (n-butyl alcohol), which affected a considerable proportion of the workers in a local rubber factory. The only previous report in the literature of ocular disturbances that may have had a similar cause is the description of conjunctivitis in 11 workers, 3 of whom had keratitis, employed in a straw hat factory where butyl alcohol and butyl acetate were used as solvents.1 Ocular irritation has, however, been recently noted in five local factories in addition to the one here referred to, and a survey of all six outbreaks, showing the relation between butanol concentration in the air and the incidence of ocular irritation will shortly be published by Tabershaw, Fahey and Skinner.2
INDUSTRIAL BACKGROUND
The ocular disturbances with which this report is concerned occurred in a plant engaged in making Army