On melanosis of the lungs and other diseases arising from the inhalation of dust / Francis Oppert.

  • Oppert, Francis.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On melanosis of the lungs and other diseases arising from the inhalation of dust / Francis Oppert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    he got rid of by taking a holiday and using expectorants besides. Traube had a similar case in the Berlin Charite, a man Ferbitz, who, I think, died there. I had some others whose cases I did not take particular notice of at the time. Their lungs may be expected to be black should they spit black when not engaged in their business. I found in the Registrar-General's report, published in the London morning papers of June 6, 1866, the death mentioned of a blaclcsmith (forty-seven years) of melanosis of the lungs (six months). In aged people the lungs have been found black after death (Guillot, Virchow) ; but I do not know a reliable case where these had black expectoration during life. In their case we may reasonably suppose that pigment is the cause of the blackness, when they had nothing to do with coal during life. Chimney-sweepers, metal-workers, coal-burners, china- scourers, china-workers, millers, brass-founders, are oc- casionally mentioned as having black expectoration. I had a tincase-maker (23) lately at the City Dispensary, who spat black, and by inquiring I found that he worked near a charcoal fire, by which the irons they use were heated, and the workshop was full of dust. He had asthma. By the physical examination I found normal vesicular breathing present everywhere; slight dry and moist rales in the lower lobes. Spirometric capacity, 2950 cub. cent, (height, 168 cent.; circumference, 75 ; mobility, 4^) ; it should have been 3300 cub, cent. A large class of sufferers from dust inhalations are knife- grinders and needle-pointers. In their case it has been proved that stone grit or silica enters the lungs. Marshall Hall had a great many cases in Sheffield. Dr. Greenhow found microscopically only a few siliceous particles in the tissue of a razor-grinder; but Dr. Peacock and others ex- tracted a remarkable amount of silica from the lungs by incision and distillation. The change in the lung tissue had this similarity with coal-miners' lung, that there were dense bands pervading the tissue, the colour black, but B