Abstract
Professor Roubal was born in Náchod on October 21, 1900. After finishing medical studies in 1924, he began his medical career in hospitals in Prachatice in South Bohemia, in Jičín in North Bohemia, and later in Zlín in Moravia. His first papers were devoted to pheochromocytoma, thyreotoxicosis, and further during wartime to bacteriophage.
In Batás hospital in Zlín, he started to built the Scientific Institute of Industrial Health with modern laboratories for toxicology, physiology, biochemistry, industrial medicine, and analytical chemistry of air pollutants in occupational settings and of biological material analysis, in addition to a very rich library. He became director of the Institute and had about 20 coworkers in the staff.
The research in the Institute was concentrated on chemicals in the production of rubber and rubber goods; before World War II mainly on war gases, gas masks, and their effectiveness, after its end on the toxicology of solvents, their determination in air, the estimation of their metabolites in urine, and on basic research in toxicology. The determination of metals, aromatic hydrocarbons, and phenolic metabolites polarography was preferred by that time.
During World War II, under Nazi rule, universities were closed for Czech students. Some employees were concealed in the Institute from Nazi’s pursuit. Members of the Institute stuff, e.g., Dr. Kadlec, Dr. Pachner, Dr. Pelnář, Dr. Pokorný, and Dr. Waelschová, worked in various fields of industrial medicine and cooperated with resistance fighters. After the War, some of them worked also as university teachers. Dr. Kadlec and Dr. Pelnář were successful in Canada.
In 1952, the Institute became part of the Regional Hygiene-Epidemiology Station in Zlín (at that time renamed Gottwaldov). Dr. Roubal left his Institute and became chief of the division of industrial hygiene in the Institute of Hygiene and Occupational Diseases in Prague, where he was concerned mainly with toxicology. At the same time, he chaired the Department of Industrial Hygiene at Charles University in Prague and at the Advanced School of Medicine and Pharmacy. He also worked as expert at Ministry of Health. In 1961, he was appointed professor.
At the Division of Industrial Hygiene, his coworkers were Dr. K. Boček, Dr. M. Krivucová, Ing. K. Marha, Doc. L. Oppl, Dr. V. Vašák, Dr. V. Šedivec; at the Charles University, he was in charge of a group of three Assistant Professors (Dr. J. Veis, Dr. A. Nauš, Dr. Z. Bardoděj) and one Research Worker (Dr. M. Krivucová). Dr. Bardoděj and Dr. Krivucová were engaged in toxicological methodology, in solvents, in intolerance of alcohol, and maximum tolerable concentrations of selected industrial toxicants.
Dr. Roubal studied benzene, its metabolism, and hematological changes after long lasting exposures in workers of boot-and-shoe industry. For the evaluation of exposure, he used also analysis of exhaled air and estimation of urinary phenol. He observed fatal outcomes of agranulocytosis in benzene workers during influenza attacks. He put through that Czechoslovakia was the first country where the use of benzine with benzene content as solvent was prohibited and the concentration was controlled by analytical methods.
He found leucopenia after exposure to butadiene, professional alopecia among workers in the production of chloroprene rubber, and congenital malformation in children of exposed workers.
He also studied 1,2-dichloroethane, 1,3-dichloro-2-butene, heptachlorocyclohexane, 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene, diisocyanates, carbon disulfide, tert-butyl chromate, thioarsenates, hazards in the production of aluminium industrial facilities (fluorides, cryolith, carcinogenic hydrocarbons).
He was interested in the field of Maximum Acceptable Concentrations, relationships between doses and effect and all relative problems of industrial toxicology.
All weekends he travelled from Prague to his family in Zlín, where his wife and two daughters lived. He was abstinent and a nonsmoker, and after the experiences from the World War, very cautious and thrifty. He liked classical music and visits in museums and during travelling he was interested in local attractions.
Although he was very mobile, in his 50s he was called grandfather. He was punctual, precise, and not too merry.
He was a good teacher, never humilitated anybody and never said words of anger or order. His words “it should be done” were famous. He disliked jokes and political funs. Once, I wrote a judgment on somebody in his presence. May be that he understood very well, but was reserved: “Oh, yes, he denounced me to Gestapo.”
He published more than 100 publications in journals, monographs, and textbooks for medical students. Professor Roubal considered among all his investigations of benzene, chloroprene, and carbon disulfide, and contribution to standards setting in Czechoslovakia, as “hobby.” For his students and coworkers, he was a man who never rejected any problem that was important for the progress in industrial toxicology.
Professor Roubal died on April 8, 1975.