Mr John Spear's report to the local government board upon the so-called "Woolsorters' Disease" as observed at Bradford and in neighbouring districts in the west Riding of Yorkshire.

  • Spear, John.
Date:
1881
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr John Spear's report to the local government board upon the so-called "Woolsorters' Disease" as observed at Bradford and in neighbouring districts in the west Riding of Yorkshire. 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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    Mr. John Spear’s Report to the Local Government Board upon the so-called “ Woolsorters’ Disease ” as observed at Bradford and in Neighbouring Districts in the West Riding of Yorkshire. George Buchanan, Medical Department, May 24, 1881. INTRODUCTION. In the middle of May, 1880, the attention of the Local Government Board was directed to the occurrence in Bradford and neighbouring districts of an apparently very fatal malady, locally known as “The Woolsorters’ Disease,” attacking persons employed in processes of sorting various wools and hairs in worsted manufactories; and on the 17th of the month I received instructions to visit the district and inquire into the nature and cause thereof. It soon became apparent that for the due elucidation of the subject pathological experiments were necessary, and that detailed histological observations would be desirable ; and for these purposes Dr. Greenfield, Professor Superintendent of the Brown Institution, was associated with me in the inquiry. On my arrival in the district I found three men, all woolsorters, convalescing from typical malignant pustule. These were at that time the only cases of the disease under treatment. But these were not typical of the many cases that had excited so much attention and even alarm in the district, and so much difference of opinion amongst the medical faculty. Such cases had exhibited no external lesion, at least no malignant pustule. The symptoms were, it was said, involved in much obscurity ; and whereas certain of the medical profession (amongst whom, as taking so distinctly a leading part in the investigation of this subject, it is not invidious to mention the name of Dr. Bell) held the disease to be a septicasmia, and some of the cases, so Dr. Bell affirmed, to be cases of anthrax, contracted in the sufferers’ occupation, others, recognizing no essentially specific feature in the attacks, doubted these conclusions. Of this form of the disease, without external manifestations, five fatal cases afterwards, during the progress of the inquiry, occurred. Pour were rapidly fatal, and I only heard of them after their termination; one of the patients I saw once before death. But in all I obtained autopsies, and the nature of the disease was ascertained.* The inquiry, it may be said at once, has established the etiological identity of these affections. The “ Woolsorters’ disease,” positive experimental evidence declares it, and the statement need not therefore be delayed, is that anthrax fever which is only known to attack man by transmission from the lower animals; and which I shall speak of hereafter under the name of “ anthrax ” simply. With this preliminary statement I propose to discuss the various subject-matters of the report in the following order :— (1.) The disease as it is known in the Bradford district: (u.) Its general history there. (b.) Its symptomatology, as gathered from the histories of cases. (c.) Its morbid anatomy, as illustrated by cases occurring during the progress of this inquiry. (2.) The etiology of the disease : with consideration of (a.) The Woolsorters. (b.) Their mortality statistics. (c.) Their occupation. (d.) The history and relative circumstances of recent attacks of the disease. (3.) The preventive and remedial measures that suggest themselves. * Besides these, I had an opportunity of seeing three patients who, in my opinion, were suffering from what I shall endeavour presently to show is the same disease in a mild or abortive form. Other cases, four of them fatal, occurred since the commencement of this inquiry, but in my absence from the district. They are included in the histories of recent attacks. Q 2890. Wt. 6260. A