Report of Board appointed to inquire into the prevalence and prevention of lead poisoning at the Broken Hill silver-lead mines to the Honourable the Minister for Mines and Agriculture.

  • New South Wales. Legislative Council.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Board appointed to inquire into the prevalence and prevention of lead poisoning at the Broken Hill silver-lead mines to the Honourable the Minister for Mines and Agriculture. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Table XI.—Sex Distribution of the People at the Census, 1891. Proportion per cent, of Males and Females. M. F. 59-8 4( :> 50-54 49-16 Table XII.—Particulars of Deaths ascribed to Lead Poisoning during the five years, 1888-92. Date. Name. Age. Registered cause of Death. Occupation. Remarks. 1889— April 2 „ 2 July 25 1890— Jan. 3 July 23 26 1891- Sept Dec. -May 17 18 Oct. 15 Dec. 28 1892—June 21 Joseph Bennetta Henry Christopher James Patrick Durkin.. Abraham Olds John Bent Marion Lane Samson Hall Edward Giles Edgar Stephen Plane... William John Grigg ... John Davies* Charles Tytherleigh 12 13 54 26 25 2 y. 8 m. 62 23 25 50 56 (or 62, as given in the deposi- tions). 49 Lead poisoning, epilepsy, 3 days Epilepsy, 9 days Heart disease, accelerated by lead poisoning. Lead poisoning, 9 days Acute anaemia and exhaustion, lead poisoning, 3 weeks. Lead poisoning, 8 weeks Lead poisoning, 4 weeks Lead poisoning, 40 hours Lead poisoning, 7 days Extreme debility through chronic lead poisoning, several months. Epilepsy, the result of chronic lead poisoning, accelerated by excessive heat (Magisterial inquiry). Chronic lead poisoning ; acute do., days. Ore-picker. Child (ore-picker) Miner. Miner. Miner. Child Miner. Miner. Miner. Miner. Boilermaker. Miner. See Q. 2070 See Q. 2701 See foot-note * A medical witness testified, but he had not seen the patient alive. After reading the depositions I concluded without hesitation that, in the absence of any post mortem examination, the finding should have been death from natural causes.—J. A.T. J. ASHBUETON THOMPSON. APPENDIX C. Examination of Public School Children, February 6th, 1893. Central Public School: master, Mr. Dwyer ; average attendance, 800 ; time of inspection, morning school. Lower section of Infant School : mistress, Miss Ferguson ; contained about seventy pupils. Miss Ferguson stated that she had herself noticed that children who lived outside the town were as a class much healthier than the children as a class who lived within the town. Having looked at the scholars, I picked three out of many pallid children. On inquiry it appeared that two of them lived in Crystal-street and one in Chappie-street. In the upper section of the Infant School, of two pallid children chosen from many, one was found to live on Central Blocks, and one in Argent-street, not quite as far north as the British Mine. Miss Beryman, in charge of this class, had not noticed any difference between children such as was mentioned by Miss Ferguson. The Junior Infants : On two cliildren being picked out at hazard from among several who were manifestly pallid it was found that they had lived in Argent and Chappie Streets respectively. Another pallid child was found to live in Gaffhey-street, but she was too young to say exactly whereabouts. Lower second class, Boys' School : Of two pallid boys, one lived at Crystal-street, and one in Beryl-street. In the higher classes one pallid boy who was interrogated lived on Billy-goat Hill. Another lived in William-street Lane, near the North School. He was very anasmic ; gums pallid, showing a deep red line at the margin ; said he was in good health. Another pale boy picked out said he lived in Pell-street. Among the girls, the pale children picked out at hazard lived in Crystal, Argent, Mica, Slag, and Beryl Streets. South School: master, Mr. M'Phie ; average attendance, about 600 ; time of inspection, afternoon school. All the class-rooms were visited, and the children inspected seriatim ; not more than three showed any pallor, and their general appearance was ruddy, although many seemed to be not strong. Their faulty physical conformation, however, showed that this was due to no local or temporary condition. North School: master, Mr. Wallace ; average attendance, about 500 ; time of inspection, afternoon school. The remarks made in the case of the South School apply on the whole; perhaps the appearance of the children was not quite so good, but they still formed a strong contrast to the children at the Central School; than whom one teacher, who had formerly taught there, thought they were decidedly healthier, and not much below classes she had taught in other parts of New South Wales (but 75 per cent, or more of the children at Broken Hill are South Australians by birth). Waters analysed at the Central School.—Examinations of waters used for drinking purposes at this school will be found in Appendix L. That in tanks attached to the school-rooms was free from lead ; that in one attached to the teacher's residence had one-fourth of a grain of lead in each gallon. The e.xplanation of this discrepancy is that the former had been cleaned out at the end of a long drought, and had recently been refilled by heavy falls of rain ; but the latter had been saved up through the drought as a source of drinking-water of supposed purity. All these tanks are exposed to the same source of contamination, namely, flue-dust from neighbouring smelters, and are stores of dangerous drinking-water ; they should be immediately removed, and the premises connected with the public water-mains. J. ASHBURTON THOMPSON. APPENDIX D. • Note.—Probably this would be the best way to supply water.