Why did we use leaded petrol for so long?
27 August 2017 Share Save Tim Harford BBC World Service, 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy Share Save
Science Photo Library Chemist Thomas Midgley insisted that tetraethyl lead was safe
Leaded petrol was safe. Its inventor was sure of it.
Facing sceptical reporters at a press conference in October 1924, Thomas Midgley dramatically produced a container of tetraethyl lead - the additive in question - and washed his hands in it.
"I'm not taking any chance whatever," Midgley declared. "Nor would I... doing that every day."
Midgley was - perhaps - being a little disingenuous. He had recently spent several months in Florida, recuperating from lead poisoning.
Some of those who'd made Midgley's invention hadn't been so lucky, which is why reporters were interested.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy highlights the inventions, ideas and innovations which have helped create the economic world in which we live.
On the Thursday of the week before Midgley's press conference, at a Standard Oil plant in New Jersey, a worker named Ernest Oelgert started hallucinating. By Friday, he was running around the laboratory, screaming in terror.
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