Second series of cases illustrating the pathology of the pulmonary disease frequent among razor-grinders, stoneworkers, colliers, etc. / by Edward Headlam Greenhow.

  • Greenhow, Edward Headlam, 1814-1888.
Date:
1865-66
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second series of cases illustrating the pathology of the pulmonary disease frequent among razor-grinders, stoneworkers, colliers, etc. / by Edward Headlam Greenhow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    nuclei. The cell-walls contained a deposit of black pigment, -which was, in some places, aiTanged round the cells in what appeared to be the thickened cell-walls. The yellow deposit, within the air-cells, appeared to be here and there detached from the cell-walls, leaving a visible interval. In some of the sections the field was traversed by what looked like semi-transpai-ent fibrous bands of the breadth of four or five cell-walls, and containing pigment-deposits. The boundary between these fibrous bands, and the surrounding granular deposit, was in eveiy instance well-defined [See Plate, Figs. 3 and 4.). A small portion of the upper lobe of the lung, having been thoroughly incinerated, left a somewhat abundant gi'eyish-coloured ash, which, on being boUed for some time in hydrochloric and nitric acids, was partially dissolved, leaving a white amoi-phous residue which did not polarize light, but was entirely dissipated by the fumes of hydrofluoric acid. The acid liquor, left by the subsidence of the silica, having been cai'e- fuUy tested in the manner described in the previous case, was found to contain a smaller quantity of iron, but a larger quantity of altimina, than was obtained from the collier's limg. Remarks.—The great liability of potters to pulmonary disease has long been known, and was mentioned by Sii' Charles Hastings, among others, in his work on Bronchitis, published upwards of forty yeai's ago. Moreover, in the autumn of 1860, I myself spent a week in the pottery districts of Staffordshire for the purpose of investigating the nature and causes, of the disease, popularly known as potters' asthma, or con- sumption, and the results of that inquiry, published in the third Eeport of the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, showed that the disease closely resembled that to which colliers, razor-grinders, and other operatives exposed to inhale dust, are found to be subject. In that paper I mentioned that the pottery operatives, who principally suffer from this disease, were the china-scourers, the flat-pressers, and the hollow-ware pressers, but that other persons employed in potteries were not altogether exempt. I stated that the immediate cause of the disease was the inhalation of the fine dry dust given off in the process of china-scouring, or raised from the floor of the hot potter's workshops by the pattering to and fro of the boys employed in carrying the green ware to the drying stove. I need scarcely say that this dust consists chiefly of silica and alumina, which form the main constituents of the clay used in the manufacture of china and earthenware.