Cases of Spurious
Melanosis of the Lungs;" Dr WILLIAM THOMSON, now Professor of Medicine
in the University of Glasgow, in two able essays (_Medico-Chirurgical
Transactions of London_, Vols. xx. and xxi.), wherein he gives a number
of very interesting cases, collected from various coal districts of
Scotland, illustrating different forms of the disease; Dr PEARSON, in
the _Philosophical Trans._ for 1813, on the "Inhalation of Carbon into
the Pulmonary Air Cells;" and in a paper, by Dr GRAHAM, in vol. xlii. of
the _Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal_.

Recently, professional and other writers have directed attention to the
influence of various occupations in the production of diseases of the
chest. The pernicious employment of the needle-pointers, razor and
knife-grinders of Sheffield, and other manufacturing towns in
England,[1] have not only engaged the attention of the public at large,
but science has been at work to ascertain, with as much accuracy as
possible, the relative effects of the different avocations, on the
constitutions of those occupied in these destructive employments.
Researches of this nature tend much to the well-being of society, as
they make us acquainted with the maladies and sufferings peculiar to
certain classes of our fellow-men; and point out, also, the causes of
their early decay, and premature death. The coal-miners--those in whose
behalf I would now solicit the intervention of science--are most
valuable in their place, and their exhausting labours promote, in no
small degree, our domestic comforts.

Some of the diseases of colliers have in past time been very much
overlooked by the medical inquirer. There has been, within the last few
years, a very searching investigation as to the employment of women and
children in coal-mines; and by the laudable exertions of Lord Ashley--a
nobleman whose name shall ever be honoured among miners, and by all who
have the true interests of that community at heart--an Act of the
Legislature has been passed, declaring it unlawful for any owner of any
mine or colliery whatever, to allow any female to work therein; and also
enacting, that no boy under the age of ten years can be employed in
mines. It is to be regretted, however, that his Lordship did not embody
in his measure, provisions enforcing the free ventilation of mines under
government inspection; for nothing would tend more to improve the health
of those employed in them.

In the course of the inqu