Liddell,F.D..K. (1973). Brit. J. industr. Med., 30, 1-14. Morbidity of British coal miners in 196162. The British coal mining population in 1961 is described, in terms of the 29084men covered in a 5% sample census, by age, type of employment, coalfield, size of community, degree of mechanization, and other factors. Over a quarter of the men were in jobs not considered specific to coalmining, al...

A survey carried out in 1957 by the Medical Research Council's Pneumoconiosis Unit was based on a private census, with brief industrial histories of men aged 55-64 and 25-34. Four groups were established in this way--"non-dusty," "pure coal-mining," "pure foundry," and "other and mixed." In the 55-64 age group all 387 men have been followed up except for one man, about whom we have no informati...

Background and Aims: Coal is a naturally occurring mineral and a large source of fossil fuel throughout the world. Its importance in Pakistan increases as other fuels, like petroleum are scares and expensive coal is abundant and cheap. Coal dust comprise of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,nitrogen, sulphur, quartz and some traces of iron, lead and copper. These particles are not degradable and deposit...

Coal workers' pneumoconiosis, also known as "black lung disease," is an occupational lung disease caused by overexposure to respirable coal mine dust. Inhaled dust leads to inflammation and fibrosis in the lungs, and coal workers' pneumoconiosis can be a debilitating disease. The Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969 (Coal Act),* amended in 1977, established dust limits for U.S. coal ...

BACKGROUND Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an important cause of occupational mortality in miners exposed to coal mine dust. Although the inflammatory mediators involved in COPD have not been defined, many studies have shown that inflammatory mediators such as reactive oxygen and nitrogen species are involved in orchestrating the complex inflammatory process in COPD. METHODS T...

Twenty-five histocompatibility antigens have been measured in 100 coal miners with pneumoconiosis attending a pneumoconiosis medical panel and the results compared with a panel of 200 normal volunteers not exposed to dust. Chest radiographs were read independently by three readers according to the ILO U/C classification. On a combined score, 40 men were thought to have simple pneumoconiosis and...

Ventilatory capacity has been measured in 675 Nigerian colliery employees classified in three groups according to occupation: coalface workers, other underground workers with low exposure to dust, and surface workers in administrative and clerical jobs. Men with current respiratory symptoms were excluded, as were ex-miners. The faceworkers were a slightly older group who smoked less, and they w...

Liddell, F. D. K. (1973). Brit. J. industr. Med., 30, 15-24. Mortality of British coal miners in 1961. In an earlier enquiry, a sizeable proportion of deaths officially ascribed to coalmining occupations was shown to have been in men who had worked in the industry but not in jobs specific to coalmining, or who had left the mines and taken up other employment. This led to overstatement of mortal...

The problem of leptospiral infection in coalminers became prominent in one area of the Scottish coaffields during the period 1940-52 when altogether 15 cases of Weil's disease were diagnosed or suspected in colliery workers out of a total manpower of some 8,000. Of those 15 cases, 11 were reported from a single colliery and four of these 11 died. Serological confirmation of the diagnosis was ob...

The structure and composition of silica-rich particles recovered by lavage from the lungs of three active miners with different medical histories were studied using high-resolution electron microscopy and chemical microanalysis. The results are compared to the similarly determined structure and composition of respirable-size mineral particles obtained from roof-bolter dust-box samples from two ...