Thomas Midgley Jr.

Rule Changes

Deceased; invented leaded gasoline

For most of the twentieth century, Americans inhaled roughly two pounds of lead per person annually from car exhaust alone. A new University of Utah study analyzing century-old hair samples documents the scale of this unintentional mass poisoning—and the reversal that followed. Lead concentrations in human hair dropped from 100 parts per million before the 1970s to less than 1 part per million today, a 100-fold decline documented through specimens preserved in family scrapbooks.

Updated May 27