The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

T?T«£IPUBLI5MED BYTAE N°RTA CAROLINA STATE B°ARD^AEALTAlVol. 70 FEBRUARY, 1955 No. 2J. W. R. NORTON, M.D., M.P.H., State Health Officer JOHN H. HAMILTON, M.D., EditorDEATHS FROM POISONINGS—NORTH CAROLINA'SMOST PREVENTABLE ACCIDENTSBy CHARLES M. CAMERON, JR., M.D., M.P.H.Chief, Accident Prevention SectionandEDGAR F. SEAGLE, B.A., M.S.P.H.Sanitation Consultant, Accident Prevention SectionN. C. State Board of HealthThe wider recognition of the importanceof home and farm accidentsas a health problem has focused particularattention on those deaths in thehome resulting from poisonous solids,liquids and gases. Since the incidenceof such accidental deaths is five timeshigher in children under five years ofage than in other age groups, deathsfrom poisons are of paramount interestto pediatricians, general practitionersand public health workers. Of furtherimportance is the fact that studiesshow five out of six poison deaths occurin the home, still considered by manyas the safest place on earth.Bain, in a recent review, has pointedout that the death rate from this causein the United States is four times thatof the British rate and that twelvesouthern states have a death rate fromaccidental ingestion of poisoning twicethat of the United States.*In children under five years of agein the entire United States, the deathrate from poison accidents is 2.6 per100,000 based on a two-year sample,1949 and 1950. During a correspondingperiod, the North Carolina death ratein the same age group was 4.2 per100,000. Figures just released for theyear 1953 indicate that in North Carolinatwenty-one deaths occurred amongchildren under five years of age frompoison accidents. The 1953 rate alsois 4.2 per 100,000 in this age group.Accidental deaths from poisons accountedfor about five and one-halfper cent of the 1,034 non-motor vehicleaccident deaths in North Carolina in1953, with this cause having been listedas the cause of death on fifty-ninecertificates. Forty-nine of these deathsoccurred either in a home or on afarm.A review has been made of thepoison deaths to delineate possibleepidemiological factors concerned intheir causation and to discover possibleavenues along which one may approachthe control of such deaths.Of the 59, a total of 16 deaths werelisted as resulting from drinking beveragealcohol or an alcohol containingproducts such as a paint diluent, solventor commercial preparation em-