FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >>  
re the carbon inhaled in quantity sufficient to explain the black colour of the lungs, it ought also, from its mechanical irritation, to produce inflammation in the delicate mucous membrane of the organ, but there are no symptoms of this during life, nor any traces of it after death." An answer to these remarks will be most satisfactorily given by a reference to the published cases, where the disease is principally found amongst colliers and moulders, and where the pulmonary organs, particularly in the former, are found to undergo most fearful disorganization from the presence of carbon. It is very remarkable, that the author of these exceedingly interesting observations should never have found excavations of the parenchyma, when it is so general as the result of the same disease in this country, particularly in the locality to which I refer. Not knowing the character of the mine, it is impossible to judge; but I am disposed to conclude that there cannot be the same quantity of carbon floating in the atmosphere breathed by the German miner,--the disease resembles very much that milder form found in the iron moulder. With regard to the carbonaceous state of the blood, I am sorry that I have not yet completed my investigations on that subject. It is still my belief that the carbon being once inhaled, there is an affinity found for that in the circulating fluid, and from its not being consumed, owing to a deficiency of oxygen, there is a progressive increase going on. I am very much gratified to find that Dr Brockmann entertains a somewhat similar opinion in respect to the state of the blood. The effects of such a morbid structure upon the collier population in general is very marked. Previous to the late legislative act, the tender youth of both sexes were at an early age consigned to the coal pit, and obliged to labour beyond their feeble strength, in circumstances ill adapted to their years. Such early bodily exhaustion soon produced in them a pallid countenance, soft and relaxed muscular fibre, and predisposed much to disease as they advanced in life. The miner on this account was generally from his youth, thin; in fact, you never see a fat and healthy-looking collier, and, according to the advance of pulmonary disease, with them, so is the progress of emaciation. Such a state of body may well be looked for in miners, labouring as they do, from ten to twelve hours in the twenty-four under ground, breathing a heated a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >>  



Top keywords:
disease
 

carbon

 

pulmonary

 

collier

 

general

 

quantity

 

inhaled

 
legislative
 

Previous

 
twelve

population

 

marked

 

tender

 

labouring

 

miners

 
structure
 

heated

 
Brockmann
 

entertains

 

increase


gratified

 
similar
 

opinion

 

twenty

 

consigned

 

effects

 

breathing

 
respect
 

ground

 

morbid


obliged
 

relaxed

 
healthy
 

muscular

 

countenance

 

produced

 

progressive

 

pallid

 

advanced

 

account


predisposed

 

advance

 

feeble

 
labour
 
generally
 

looked

 
strength
 

circumstances

 

bodily

 

exhaustion