Re: chemical hoods

[Marilynne Smith <mrsmith -at- CTS -dot- COM>]

Taking the position of the uneducated technician, is the safety hood a place
to put dangerous materials*or* a place where a person can escape from
dangerous materials?  Most of the fume hoods of my experience would accept a
person.

As a new chemistry student I decided to minimize my glass fees by cleaning
materials out of the tubes and reusing them.  On one particularly difficult
precipitate, I became impatient and simply poured hydrochloric acid into it.

The result was my carrying my wicked brew to the fume hood, escorted by a
very angry lab assistant.  When the emergency was over, I was further
humiliated by being required to work out the chemical reactions on the board
with the rest of the class snickering behind me.  (I had created hydrogen
sulfide.)  The humiliation was justified since I never again put two
chemicals together without knowing what the expected reaction was.

The point is that, even with instruction people can be careless.   If people
are to learn why and how to use a fume hood we must be very careful how we
say it.

Marilynne
mrsmith -at- cts -dot- com
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At 07:54 AM 4/1/96 -0500, Joel Cambron wrote:
>In the medical laboratory, we called them biological safety hoods or safety
hoods.

>Joel
>joel -dot- cambron -at- cibadiag -dot- com


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Marilynne Smith
mrsmith -at- cts -dot- com
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