thus weakened, in consequence of the almost universally
constrained position during work; and they are so frequent
that in Yorkshire and Lancashire, as in Northumberland
and Durham, the assertion is made by many witnesses,
not only by physicians, that a miner may be recognised
by his shape among a hundred other persons. The
women seem to suffer especially from this work, and
are seldom, if ever, as straight as other women.
There is testimony here, too, to the fact that deformities
of the pelvis and consequent difficult, even fatal,
childbearing arise from the work of women in the mines.
But apart from these local deformities, the coal
miners suffer from a number of special affections
easily explained by the nature of the work. Diseases
of the digestive organs are first in order; want of
appetite, pains in the stomach, nausea, and vomiting,
are most frequent, with violent thirst, which can
be quenched only with the dirty, lukewarm water of
the mine; the digestion is checked and all the other
affections are thus invited. Diseases of the
heart, especially hypertrophy, inflammation of the
heart and pericardium, contraction of the auriculo-ventricular
communications and the entrance of the aorta
are also mentioned repeatedly as diseases of the miners,
and are readily explained by overwork; and the same
is true of the almost universal rupture which is a
direct consequence of protracted over-exertion.
In part from the same cause and in part from the
bad, dust-filled atmosphere mixed with carbonic acid
and hydrocarbon gas, which might so readily be avoided,
there arise numerous painful and dangerous affections
of the lungs, especially asthma, which in some districts
appears in the fortieth, in others in the thirtieth
year in most of the miners, and makes them unfit for
work in a short time. Among those employed in
wet workings the oppression in the chest naturally
appears much earlier; in some districts of Scotland
between the twentieth and thirtieth years, during
which time the affected lungs are especially susceptible
to inflammations and diseases of a feverish nature.
The peculiar disease of workers of this sort is “black
spittle,” which arises from the saturation of
the whole lung with coal particles, and manifests
itself in general debility, headache, oppression of
the chest, and thick, black mucous expectoration.
In some districts this disease appears in a mild
form; in others, on the contrary, it is wholly incurable,
especially in Scotland. Here, besides the symptoms
just mentioned, which appear in an intensified form,
short, wheezing, breathing, rapid pulse (exceeding
100 per minute), and abrupt coughing, with increasing
leanness and debility, speedily make the patient unfit
for work. Every case of this disease ends fatally.
Dr. Mackellar, in Pencaitland, East Lothian, testified
that in all the coal mines which are properly ventilated
this disease is unknown, while it frequently happens
that miners who go from well to ill-ventilated mines