An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis

An Investigation into the Nature of Black Phthisis, by Archibald Makellar, concerns ulceration induced by carbonaceous accumulation in the lungs of coal miners, and other operatives. The preface says an abstract of the investigations into the nature of carbonaceous infiltration into the pulmonary tissues of coal miners was read by Dr Makellar at a meeting of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh on Wednesday, 8th July, 1845. The writer says that coal-miners, those in whose behalf he would now solicit the intervention of science, are most valuable in their place, and that their exhausting labours promote, in no small degree, our domestic comfort.

The book mentions the pernicious employment of the needle-pointers, razor and knife-grinders of Sheffield, and other manufacturing towns in England, and says it has engaged the attention of the public at large. A case in the book records a pulse that ranged from 80 to 90, an impaired appetite and a morning tendency to retching. The book describes bronchial glands of a bright black colour in the substance of the upper lobe of both lungs, and says the upper lobe of both lungs exhibited the plum-pudding structure.