17,2 THE miners' PHTHISIS OF THE KAND. 



ing its removal by active ventilation or by forbidding all entrance 

 to the particular working for a sufficient length of time. 



It is of practical interest to note that even the most efificient 

 respirator yet devised is incapable of arresting the fine, siliceous 

 dust, which is the essential factor in pulmonary silicosis. 



The other direction in which miners' phthisis is being com- 

 bated is the detection and exclusion of those workers, who are 

 expectorating the tubercle bacillus, and who are therefore active 

 distributors of infection. Investigations in this matter are being 

 pursued by more than one administration, but I am not free to 

 make any statement, at the present time, concerning certain con- 

 clusions which appear imminent. 



Bearing in mind that pulmonary silicosis has been very pre- 

 valent amongst flour-millers and metal-grinders, as well as 

 amongst hard-rock miners, the following facts are of interest. 

 The substitution of steel rollers for grindstones in the milling 

 industry has practically abolished phthisis. Twenty years ago 

 friendly societies would not accept millers as members, but no 

 objection to their membership is now heard of. The steel- 

 grinders of Solingen, during the year 1885-95. <^icd at the rate 

 of 20 per 1,000; precautions were adopted, with the result 

 that, in 1905, the mortality has fallen to 10 per 1000. 



Amongst miners engaged in quartz-rock mines we notice that 

 those of the Waihi mines of New Zealand, where precautions 

 against inhaling dust are enforced, are much less affected with 

 pulmonary disease than the workers in less favoured mines of 

 the same country. In the ganister mines of Yorkshire the mor- 

 tality from phthisis had been "officially" reduced 15 per cent.- 

 between the years 1900 and 1912; and upon visiting these mines 

 in September, 1914, I found, to my surprise, that the workers 

 admitted that the disease had been practically abolished from 

 amongst them. Turning now to the Witwatersrand, we find 

 that the President of the Chamber of Mines has recently an- 

 nounced that the applicants for relief under the Miners' Phthisis 

 Compensation Act have decreased 50 per cent, since the promul- 

 gation of the measure in 1912. 



The proposition of abolishing miners' phthisis from the 

 Rand is an entirely feasible one, provided always that the worker 

 and the management co-operate loyally in the common cause. 

 The degenerate and inhuman sentiment revealed in the dictum 

 of '" my class, right or wrong," is antagonistic to all communal 

 progress ; such an influence can only serve to still further post- 

 pone the time, desired of all true scientists, when a man shall be 

 appraised, not by his services to his class, but to humanity. 



