Mortality from respiratory diseases in dusty trades (inorganic dusts) / by Frederick L. Hoffman.

  • Hoffman, Frederick L. (Frederick Ludwig), 1865-1946.
Date:
[1918]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Mortality from respiratory diseases in dusty trades (inorganic dusts) / by Frederick L. Hoffman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    36/470 (page 30)
    and Public Health, printed in 1879. This writer, Dr. Koger S. Tracy, for many years registrar of vital statistics of New York City and sanitary inspector of the board of health, makes the following state¬ ment, with particular reference to the special form or type of disease resulting from the inhalation of metallic and mineral dusts: The disease comes on very gradually, like the more slowly de¬ veloped forms of phthisis pulmonalis, and its duration may be ex¬ tended over four or five years. It begins with the cough of irritation, dry and hacking at first, with very scanty expectoration, whitish and stringy in character; there is no haemoptysis, but sometimes nausea and vomiting in the morning. Auscultation at this time reveals puerile respiration, with occasional slight rales. The expectoration gradually increases in amount and becomes reddish, and soon after this tinge appears there may be hsemoptysis. There is dyspnea on slight exertion, and dullness over the whole chest, with weak respira¬ tion and mucous rales. 'There is no fever, and the appetite and strength are still good. If work is abandoned at this time, recovery is not only possible, but in most cases probable. If work is continued, the lung tissue begins to break down, and cavities form near the apices. Expectoration is very profuse, and there may be severe hemorrhages. There is general clullness on percussion, and the last traces of vesicular respiration give way to sibilant, large mucous and cavernous rales. Fever is continuous, with evening exacerbations, night sw^eats, em.aciation, insomnia, and great dyspnea, soon followed by death. Very suggestive also are the observations and conclusions of Dr. John Syer Bristowe, F. E. S., who, in an address on industrial dis¬ eases, read at the conference on sanitary subjects held in connection with the International Health Convention of 1881, discussed the effects of nonpoisonous irritants on the lungs, in part as follows: Occupations which habitually expose the workmen to the inhala¬ tion of abundant solid particles that are incapable of solution or removal by the animal tissues or secretions, in many cases induce chronic diseases of the lungs/which are known as the asthmas or consumptions of the several occupations referred to, and tend very materially to shorten life among those engaged in them. Workers in coal mines and in copper mines, grinders, millstone makers, and flax dressers are perhaps especially liable to suffer from such causes. It is marvelous how tolerant the bronchial tubes and lungs are of for¬ eign particles which are drawn into them with the breath. Wherever smoke impregnates the atmosphere, as in London and other manufac¬ turing towns, its particles are conveyed in greater or less abundance into the lungs; whence some are expelled with the expectoration, which presents, consequently, a slaty or black appeaiTmce, while some get absorbed, and becoming deposited in the tissue of the lungs, pro¬ duce in them that black mottling which increases with advancing years, and is well knoAvn to pathologists. Yet, as a general rule, the soot-studded organs remain practically healthy, and no clinical evi¬ dences of pulmonary disease manifest themselves. The same remarks doubtless apply to the inhalation of the siliceous particles of ordinary