Friday, October 11, 2013

Clinton Iowa and the First Autism Case

The first three children exhibiting autism were "a child from Forest, Mississippi, the son of a plant pathologist, and the son of a forestry professor in a southern University (Olmsted)."

The most famous first child with autism was Donald from Forest, Mississippi. In their book The Age of Autism, Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill talk about a new product Lignasan that was used to treat pine. One of the ingredients in Lignasan was ethylmercury.

While the authors don't prove it was a cause, one company  known to partake in the use of Lignasan was the firm Eastman-Gardiner. They butted up against another lumber company who used the chemical. This company operated in Forest, Mississippi. When Donald's parents built their house, they most likely used wood from either mill to build their home. Of course, the authors are saying mercury causes autism, and that's not important here. What is important is as this product wore down it realized ethylmercury into the air. So the house was literally breathing out mercury, which the inhabitants would have been breathing. So while i probably isn't the cause of autism or more direct, this isn't the amazing part to me. I find it amazing that a firm from Clinton, Iowa moved to Laurel, Mississippi and employed a toxic chemical that 80 years later would be connected to the autism debate.

The history of the Gardiner interests is a huge undertaking. The Gardiners went from working in the Lamb mills to owning their own to moving south. In the South, they operated one of the nation's largest mills and completely transformed the town of Laurel, Mississippi. They also invested in mineral rights and oil rights in the South. I doubt they would have foreseen becoming a minor footnote in the history of autism.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

My Posts Have Been Depleted... Now Rebirth!

I apologize for the limited posts in the past few weeks, maybe months. The Sawmill Museum has been very busy, and we hope that in the next six months to have some very exciting news to share. In the next four weeks, I would expect quite a few updates.

Lately, I've been reading about the depletion of the North Woods in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. The cries began in America in earnest in the 1860s and 1870s and reached its peak by the 1900-1910 era of Teddy, as the story goes. One of my favorite books on the subject is The Depletion Myth by Sherry Olson that sets out to examine whether the forests were really on their way out. Sherry allows for the fact that virgin timber has been greatly reduced and the monster trees of yesteryear are no more. Even more Sherry allows that a change needed to happen.  The book places the consumer at the heart of the change. The "saving" of the forests happened because of a change in the economy and consumer habits. Sherry's largest point was the changes in the economics and technology allowed for more farmland to be turned over to forests. The book is  a very interesting answer to the role of conservation in saving America's forests.

Just a quick story, more to come.



Sources:

http://books.google.com/books?id=hVyRyxyoOR0C&pg=PA209&dq=depletion+of+forests+wisconsin&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XfNVUuH0NIOBygH0sYDYDA&ved=0CEYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=iowa&f=false