"anton" wrote in message
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"Franz Heymann" wrote in message
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"Janet Baraclough.." wrote
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"anton" wrote in message
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Please don't suggest that anyone put petrol on their hands-
it
contains
benzene, for instance, which is really not nice.

I days of old, when I designed and used vacuum systems, we
often
used
benzene to clean mechanical components and, occasionally, our
hands.
My hands did not suffer any ill.

Benzene is carcinogenic, especially via occupational exposure.

In that case, either its potency is quite low, or I am lucky.


Maybe, but a score of 0 so far out of 1 is not a terrific way of
assessing
the risks of cancer or dermatitis.

I was not the sole inhabitant of the four laboratories in which I
worked at various times.
Incidentally, we used ether for really finicky clean-up jobs.
To clean excessively greasy objects, including our hands, the powers
that be provided a big, deep horse trough filled with warmed
trichlorethylene. To clean your hands, you just held them in the
trike vapour which condensed on the object or your hands, dissolved
the grease and rained back into the vat.

For both reasons it's not to be
recommended for hand-washing.
http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/BE/benzene.html

I find turps on a rag to be pretty good for conifer resin, but I
hesitated
before recommending it:
http://physchem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/WH/white_spirits.html

I presume you have not heard that turpentine is carcinogenic. {:-))

Franz