DISEASES INCIDENT TO DUST BREATHING.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 44, 21 March 1877, Page 3

DISEASES INCIDENT TO DUST BREATHING.

At a meeting of the British Associalion }.al'!-ly held at Shediold, a. paper was read on ike diseases inr-ukmlal to certain occupations, through irriinnt solids inhaled by artisans (*uring their work. The lerrible life anil parly death of tin? •Sheffield foiii'o-grinder is 'pretty well known, and that painters, and those who work with preparations of lead, &c. are subject to colic and paralysis, is far from a mystery. The extent to which irri'sticn and ultimate serious damage to the lungs is spread among the manufacturing cla sses of large towns, however, has, probably, scarcely be-fore received such consideration. Gasfifctcrs, shell-cleaners, electrotjpers, and other handicrai'tsmen who arc engaged m the multiplicity of chemical works we naturally conclude are more or less deleteriously affected by the fumes of the ga.ses they inhale, and seeing the clouds with which some of them are ever more or less surrounded, we may, too, have thought that miners, eottonspinqers, millers, workers m hair, flax, and shodd_y, potters, stone-cutters, and grinders of all kinds, most assuredly do not enjoy an utter immunity from evil effects, consequent on breathing the dust-laden air. The lungs of those who have died of grinders' asthma ha,ve been found of a dark-grey colour, sprinkled with small black spots, .varying m size from that of a split shot to that of a kidney-bean, and so solidified, as to be cut with some difficulty. Beneath the surface are black bodies congregated into masses, one of which, near the bifurcation of the trachea m a razorgrinder, found by Dr. Hall, was as large as an egg ; whilst the lungs generally are often found infiltrated with indurated inatrei', tough, solid, and hard to be cut, and m colour resembling gutta-percha. Such conditions as these exist only m the lungs of old grinders, ol ! whom there are very few, since they usually perish before sixty. Potters are, it seems, great sufferers not only from chronic and incurable bonchitis catised by inhaling the mineral dust generated by their trade, but from lead used m glazing, one out of every twelve out-patients at the North Staffordshire lufirmary suffeiing, iv one way or another, from lead-poisoning. Granite masons are especially subject to phthisis, the report of Dr. Beveridge showing that whilst the general mortality from that disease iuid decreased at Aberdeen, phthisis had increased among the masons. This, however, he attributes to the employment of young and weakly town-bred-lads, through the older hands having emigrated. The same evils appear to attend the more youthful millstone makers,, those who are apprenticed to the trade rarely living beyond thirty or forty. Dr. Peacock states that he has found the luugs of these people charged with siliceous matter, and believes that if the stones were drosst'd when wet, inhalation of the gritty particles would be prevented. Above all, however, by far the most deadly occupation treated of at this meeting would appear to be that of the white-lead makers. These poor wretches arc first attacked by colic, then by paralysis., and if death release them not young-, they linger on blighted and miserable. Here, then, we have a longcatalogue of ills which human flesh is heir to through breathing air holding m suspension particles more or less injurious to life, and it will be worth while considering whether we ai'e not, by our new wooden pavings, conducing to add to the list. It has been stated that-80 miles of wood paving have already been taken up and abolished at New York, although the precise cause of its rejection has not yet transpired. Now everyone who has passed through our woodenpaved London thorough-fares has assuredly noticed the creosote, the asphalte, the gravel, and the dust, ancl has, moreover, more or less pondered on the all but s^ugiform receptacle presented by thu-'"wooden battens and blocks for all the moisture and filth inhei'enfc to the site and traflie of our great city, and when after a while the comminuted dust from the wood paving, partaking of the vicious characters of the deleterious components we have mentioned, becomes a compound cortical essence, so to say, of general abomination, we 'shall perhaps find that some new form of phthisis, or other disease has boon added to the long list engendered by foul breathing. — "European Mail."