THISIS, or Ulceration
induced by Carbonaceous Accumulation in the Lungs.

The rise and progress of the malady may be thus sketched: A robust young
man, engaged as a miner, after being for a short time so occupied,
becomes affected with cough, inky expectoration, rapidly decreasing
pulse, and general exhaustion. In the course of a few years, he sinks
under the disease; and, on examination of the chest after death, the
lungs are found excavated, and several of the cavities filled with a
solid or fluid carbonaceous matter.

During the last ten years, my attention has been much directed, in the
course of my professional labours in the neighbourhood of the
coal-mining district of Haddingtonshire, to the above phenomena in the
pathology of the lungs, which have not hitherto been brought so fully
before the profession, as their importance demands. The subject presents
a very interesting field of investigation to the physiologist and
pathologist.

When we consider the difficulties which the medical man has to
encounter, in prosecuting his researches in morbid anatomy in a mining
district, it is sufficiently explained why the peculiarly diseased
structures in the body of the coal-miner should have been left so long
uninvestigated.

Not many years ago, the obstacles in the way of _post mortem_
examinations among colliers were insurmountable, and consequently, till
lately, few medical men could obtain permission to examine, after death,
the morbid appearances within the chest of a collier. With the rapid
advance in the general improvement which has been going on, the
collier's position in society has become greatly elevated; and his
deeply-rooted superstitious feelings have been, to a great extent,
dissipated. Let us hope that the school-master will find his way into
every collier's dwelling, enlightening his too long uncultivated mind;
and that the foolish prejudices shall cease, which have been hitherto
the barriers to _post-mortem_ examinations in his community.

The only medical writers, as far as I am aware, who have brought this
subject before the notice of the profession, are, Dr J. C. GREGORY, in
the report of a case of peculiar black infiltration of the whole lungs,
resembling "Melanosis," (_Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_, No.
cix., October 1831); Dr CARSEWELL, in an article on "Spurious
Melanosis," (_Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine_, Vol. iii); Dr MARSHALL,
in a paper in _The Lancet_ for 1836, entitled "