万物简史 第214期:把铅撵出去(3)

（单词翻译）

 　　As Sharon Bertsch McGrayne notes in her absorbing history of industrial chemistry, Prometheans in the Lab, when employees at one plant developed irreversible delusions¹, a spokesman blandly² informed reporters: "These men probably went insane because they worked too hard." Altogether at least fifteen workers died in the early days of production of leaded gasoline, and untold³ numbers of others became ill, often violently so; the exact numbers are unknown because the company nearly always managed to hush⁴ up news of embarrassing leakages⁵, spills, and poisonings. At times, however, suppressing the news became impossible, most notably⁶ in 1924 when in a matter of days five production workers died and thirty-five more were turned into permanent staggering wrecks⁷ at a single ill-ventilated facility.