June 22, 1872.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
1011 
'Conditions, much, more nearly resembling those of these 
■cotton weavers. 
“Examining the yearly death-rates of Todmorden 
from lung diseases and consumption together, and com¬ 
paring them with the corresponding rates of England 
at large, there is found to have been in 1851-60 no 
excess of such mortality among persons of the middle 
period of life (the figures are 467 against 448), but some 
excess among- persons over 55 years of age (1340 against 
1190.) The Todmorden death-rates of the last few years, 
as compared with those of ten years ago, from lung 
disease and consumption, show only one important 
change, and that consists in a considerable increase 
(from a rate of 1340 to a rate of 1860) of such mortality 
among people over 55 years old. 
“ Examining the mortality registered as from lung 
•di; seases separately from that registered as consumption, 
there would appear to be great and growing excess of 
■* lung diseases ’ in Todmorden ; while there has been a 
lower death-rate from ‘ consumption ’ there than in 
England, and this death-rate is less now than formerly. 
However, experience has shown that in an instance like 
the present, it is unsafe to draw inferences from the 
death returns, in regard to the prevalence of the one 
class of diseases apart from the other, as the appearance 
of disease in the death register under the one or the 
other class may be more a question of nomenclature than 
of facts. 
“All the medical men in Todmorden agree that lung 
diseases are greatly prevalent there, and that the cir¬ 
cumstances - of employment in the cotton manufacture 
conduce to such diseases. There is a general agreement 
too that cotton-workers, with a family tendency to con¬ 
sumption, have that tendency developed; and that those 
who, without such tendency, continue to work in mills 
up to 40 or 50 years of age, very commonly break down 
with lung disease. It is also agreed that they suffer 
much, and. more than other people from dyspepsia. But 
here the general agreement ends. Respecting the parti¬ 
cular occupational circumstances that bring out con¬ 
sumption, or that cause lung disease and dyspepsia, 
them is difference of medical opinion. While some of 
the doctors are disposed to ascribe these diseases to sud¬ 
den changes of atmospheric moisture and temperature, 
to want of care about clothing, and to hastily swallowed 
meals, others recognize the dust produced in the cotton 
mills as being a potent additional cause of each of these 
maladies. Respecting any change in prevalence of 
these diseases among weavers, since the practice of heavy 
sizing was introduced, and respecting the degree of this 
prevalence among weavers as compared with people em¬ 
ployed in other branches of work, there is again difference 
•of statement. On the whole, medical opinion inclines 
to there being more ill-effect on the lungs of weavers 
now than formerly, and to the weavers approaching 
now more than formerly to carders in their liability to 
chest compdaints. 
“ There can be no doubt that there is a widely spread, 
though not a universal, belief among weavers in the in¬ 
jurious effects of ‘ China clay.’ I was given the oppor¬ 
tunity of personally conversing with twenty weavers, who 
thought they had been injured by the processes newly 
incident to the occupation of weaving, or as they put it, 
by the China clay. They were of various ages, and 
both sexes, and had had experiences of weaving of very 
various duration. The commonest complaint among 
them was shortness of breath coming on at various 
times after they began weaving, incapacitating them 
from any active exertion, and ceasing quickly in such as 
changed their employment for home or out-door work. 
Among eleven who had experienced this, four, aged re¬ 
spectively 53, 50, 39 and 19, had distinct emphysema of 
the lungs; one, aged 18, with family history of con¬ 
sumption, had some consolidation of the apex of one 
lung; and another, aged 19, had a questionable similar 
consolidation. Three others had suffered, or were suffer¬ 
ing from bronchitis. Of the 20 persons, ten gave the 
history of prolonged subacute dyspepsia. Four had 
suffered under more or less permanent epistaxis. 
“ By the persons themselves, often with medical 
authority, these complaints were connected with the 
conditions of occupation in the weaving-sheds. Besiles 
that, the ailments had ceased, or had been relieved by 
cessation of such occupation; statements, apparently 
trustworthy, were made by several of the weavers, that 
the more dusty sheds increased the intensity of symp¬ 
toms, and two of them, who had had long experience of 
particular establishments, spoke with confidence to 
having begun to suffer in their chests only after the 
introduction of new methods of sizing. All the weavers 
who were questioned stated that they knew of other 
weavers who had suffered in some similar way to them¬ 
selves. A very intelligent overlooker, who accompanied 
me through one of the most important establishments of 
the town, expressed his own belief that weaving was not 
so healthy a branch of the cotton manufacture as before 
heavy sizing was in vogue, and that fewer weavers now 
pass middle age without getting something the matter 
with their lungs.” 
Such then are the facts Dr. Buchanan has been able 
to gather, bearing on the relation between disease and 
the heavy sizing processes used in Todmorden. The 
evidence proves, he thinks, that a slow but certain injury 
to health results from the circumstances under which 
weavers work at Todmorden. 
Experience tells that the diseases, set up by dusty 
occupations are not, as a group, rapidly fatal. During 
the years that their victims are only disabled (and even 
disablement comes but slowly), no record is kept of their 
prevalence. When at last they kill, perhaps after having- 
driven the worker to some other occupation and having- 
made his life miserable for ten or twenty years, then for 
the first time they get registered. 
These conclusions are of quite exact application to the 
sizing processes in use at Todmorden. Of late years by 
the use of excessive quantities of ‘ size,’ the amount of 
dust in the process of weaving has been enormously 
increased, until it has come to pass that in many mills, 
weaving makes more dust than carding. Accordingly, 
we have already an increase in the previously high death- 
rate from lung diseases and consumption together among 
residents in the town who have passed fifty-five years 
of age; an increase that, under these circumstances, and 
in view of the fact that it all appears on the registers 
as lung disease and not consumption, must be presumed 
to result essentially from an increase in those prolonged 
and miserable diseases that are engendered by dusty 
occupations. Unless, therefore, in the practice of sizing, 
or in other ways, important changes occur, it is to be 
expected that the already excessive and increased mor¬ 
tality will still further increase; for the dust diseases 
are slow in their nature, and the heavy-sizing processes 
that are giving- rise to them have not yet had time to 
produce their full effect. 
Action for Libel brought by a Pharmaceutical 
Chemist against a Surgeon. 
Court of Exchequer, June 17th. (Sittings at TSisi Prim , 
at Westminster, before Baron Martin and a Sqwcial Junj.') 
Booth v. Forsyth. 
Mr. Huddleston, Q.C., and Mr. J. O. Griffits were 
counsel for the plaintiff; and Mr. Digby Seymour, Q,.C., 
and Mr. Benjamin appeared for the defendant. 
This was an action of slander brought by a pharma- 
eutical chemist at East Greenwich against a surgeon. 
The slander complained of, the plaintiff alleged, wa 
uttered in the presence of a Doctor Saundry, as they 
were leaving the residence of a Mr. Downs,, on the 
Marshes. The defendant said to the plaintiff, “I have 
an important case down in the Marshes where you have 
been supplying medicine to procure abortion. To be 
