Peter:

Organic fumes do not just enter the body through the lungs.  Skin absorption
also occurs.  In 1971 I was basically the Nanny for two guys who were lining
chemical tanks with polyester resin/glass flakes/fiberglass.  When working
inside a tank, they wore hoods fed by fresh air lines.  They did not breath
any fumes.  But the fumes still caused bizarre behavior.  My job, besides mix
the resin and lower it to them from the hatch, was to hold their money for
them.  I wasn't required to attempt rescue if something happened.  About
every 45 minutes, they would begin hooting and singing.  They usually knew
enough to come out of the tank by themselves, but sometimes they needed to be
told.  When they came out, they were always stoned out of their minds from
the fumes.  I held their money because they had learned the hard way that
they would give away money when they were wasted.  (Hmm, does this explain
the Money Pit aspect of home restoration?)  To them, giving away money was
the biggest problem that resulted from the polyester resin fumes.  At least
the hooting and the singing stopped when they left the reverb chamber that
was the steel tank.  In the open air outside the tank they switched to
stripping and dancing.  While they bathed in acetone.  Yahoo!  I think that
the subcontracting business was a real hoot for them.

Steve Stokowski
Stone Products Consultants
http://members.aol.com/crushstone/petro.htm

In a message dated 1/18/00 3:30:13 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< but one thing I discovered
 (the hard way, of course) about the organic vapor
 cartridge is that it can eventually saturate in the presence of high solvent
 fume concentrations, and let the fumes through.  This happened to me when
 working with methylene-chloride paint stripper in a small hallway,
 with imperfect ventilation.  I didn't notice it happening for a while,
 until I started getting woozy. >>