Medicine: Silicosis

The question of silicosis last week caused a wrangle in San Francisco, where doctors, lawyers, miners, mineowners, insurance men, legislators, public health agents and fuss-budgets met to argue the pros & cons of a disease which has lately taken the public spotlight as the subject of bitter industrial controversy.

Silicosis is due to inhalation of fine, sharp particles of sand, sandstone or quartz, all of which contain silica, by miners', sandblasters, quarrymen, tunnel borers. The silica particles erode the delicate lining of the lungs, make them vulnerable to the germs of pneumonia...

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