Digital BW, The Print

I am personally hooked by this topic because my most important photo
teacher, CF, a student of Minor White, died of Parkinsons at a very
young age. 

My father also died of Parkinsons, but he was never significantly
involved with photo chemistry. 

I always associated CF's Parkinsons with pyro though I don't actually
know if he used it at Rochester...by the time I met him he already had
advanced Parkinsons (at 33!) and only shot Kodachrome. 

My mother, an accomplished photo/darkroom enthusiast in the 30s/40s,
told me about Margaret Bourke-White's death from Parkinsons, calling
it "photographers' disease." I don't know if Bourke-White used pyro.

Westons'fingernails, not his hands, were the famous telltale pyro
black...this wasn't just a stain. 

**What was most convincing to me was the similarity I saw in a set of
Ciba photomicroscopy prints in a Seattle exhibit in the mid-80s: Nerve
tissue damaged in one case by what I recall as "pyrogallic acid"  and
nerve tissue of a Parkinsons victim. The day I saw those photos I
called the MD who was featured in "The Case of the Frozen Addict" and
informed him. He'd not known the long-rumored association between this
photo chemical and his discovery of chemically induced Parkinsons.

"Pyrogallic acid" MAY share chemical characteristics with the botched
Ectacy (designer drug) that produced Parkinsons Syndrome documented in
the Nova production called "The Case of the Frozen Addict." 

http://www.parkinson.org/site/pp.asp?c=9dJFJLPwB&b=100132


--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Peter De Smidt
<pdesmidt@T...> wrote:
> john dean wrote:
> 
> >Edward used the extremely toxic 
> >developer Pyro for his negatives and the equally nasty  Amidol for
his prints. 
> >His hands turned black from using this stuff and it eventually
killed him, 
> >destroyed his nervous system, long before he should have left this
earth. 
> >  
> >
> Hi John,
> 
> I was unaware that there is a proven link between pyrogallic acid, 
> amidol and parkenson's disease. Perhaps John could cite some references?
> 
> I agree, though, with the sentiment that traditional darkroom workers 
> (and everyone else for that matter) should avoid toxic substances
unless 
> absolutely necessary.  Luckily there are lots of environmentally benign 
> darkroom formulas. (I use a vitamin c/phenidone developer, ascorbic
acid 
> stop bath....) 
> 
> -Peter De Smidt
> www.desmidt.net