Forced to sell our labor, work can mean a death sentence for the proletariat. A look at the sources, effects, and possible preventions of silicosis.

‘Slow Death in the Dusty Trades’ from Health and Hygiene. Vol. 1 No. 1. April, 1935.

Silicosis endangers the lives of one million American workers. The mortality rate resulting from exposure to silica dust is mounting.

A VERMONT quarry worker walks part of the way up a hill and stops, short of breath. A Colorado gold miner, a copper miner in Montana, a silver miner in Nevada is laid off, wind-broken and incapacitated. Lead and zinc miners of the Joplin district in Missouri fill what hospital beds there are, stricken with pneumonia and influenza. In Pennsylvania, coal miners are dying, lips turned blue and gasping for breath because their overworked hearts are slowly failing. In Gauley’s Junction, West Virginia, Negro tunnel workers lie panting, succumbing to tuberculosis.

These are the victims of the dusty trades, victims of the criminal negligence of mine and factory owners leading to the industrial tragedy resulting from the lung disease known as silicosis.

1,000,000 Exposed to Silicosis.

According to the most recent and conservative estimates, there are approximately one million workers in the United States who are exposed to silica dust which causes silicosis, and, for the most part, these workers are unaware of its hazards. A list of industries in which silica dust is present as a menace would fill this page. Besides those industries mentioned above, a fog of silica dust fills the air wherever pottery, glassware, asbestos, cement, iron, steel, granite, slate, sandpaper, grindstones, pencils, scouring powder, soapstone, pumice, sandstone, enamelware and porcelain are produced. In the army of silicotics (workers who suffer from the lung disease, silicosis) are rock drillers and blasters, excavators, construction workers, buffers, metal grinders, coal handlers, sandblasters and pulverizers.

Silicosis is a disease of the lungs which is caused by the prolonged inhalation of millions of extremely minute particles of silica dust, chemically known as silicon dioxide. These particles are so small that they can only be seen under a microscope. Normally, silica dust is present in the air in residential districts of large cities to the extent of about two million particles per cubic foot. It is generally considered that ten million particles of silica dust per cubic foot is the maximum concentration consistent with health. In most enclosed places where pneumatic tools are used, by miners, drillers, sand-blasters, etc., the concentration figure per cubic foot varies from sixty million to as high as two hundred million particles of silica dust in the air! These particles may take as long as eight hours to settle to the ground. In reality, however, the dust remains suspended in the air during the entire working period because of the continuous blasting and drilling. The more particles present in the air which workers breathe, the sooner does silicosis develop and the more severe is the form that it takes.

Scarred Lungs

With each breath the worker inhales silica dust particles in enormous numbers and these particles reach the lungs and settle there. The irritating qualities of silica dust produce a reaction in the lungs which leads to the formation of small scars. These scars replace the lung tissue, thereby reducing the area of lung capable of the breathing function. Gradually, over a period of years, and in severe cases, even months, the lungs become increasingly scarred and the worker finds that with slight exertion he is short-winded. Because of the continuous and progressive inury to the lungs they become very susceptible to infections such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and influenza (the two latter are particularly common among foundry workers). Although the silicosis itself may prove fatal, it is usually tuberculosis or pneumonia to which the silicotic worker succumbs. For a period of years, the worker usually feels perfectly well, despite the fact that scars may have been forming in his lungs as early as six months after the beginning of his employment in a dusty trade. He may even leave his work at a dusty trade after a number of years and change his occupation to that of an office worker or farmer but this does not halt the progress of the disease which, once established, runs its fatal course. The worker becomes extremely short-winded and falls victim to tuberculosis or pneumonia.

Pulmonary tuberculosis is three-and-one-half times as frequent among workers in the dusty trades between the ages of 45 and 55 than it is among workers between these ages who are not exposed to silica dust. The disease occurs almost entirely among men because the dusty trades employ men almost exclusively. Women, however, can also become victims of silicosis as is illustrated by its presence and fatal outcome in several working women whose job it was to mend the torn sacks used for transporting pulverized sandstone. The sandstone dust remaining in the meshes of these sacks was sufficient to cause the death of the women from silicosis.

In certain industries, silicosis is followed by tuberculosis in an enormous percentage of instances. Thus, tuberculosis is the cause of death among lead and zinc miners eighteen times as frequently as throughout the general population; tuberculosis is likewise ten times as frequent among granite and sandstone cutters, nine times as frequent among copper miners and eight times as frequent among gold and silver miners as it is throughout the general population. Coal miners are less susceptible to tuberculosis than the above workers but they succumb in larger numbers to pneumonia and heart disease which follow on the silicosis.

Silicosis is Preventable

Silicosis is almost an entirely preventable disease. With proper precautions, the incidence of this disease could be effectively reduced. At this point, it is interesting to note where and under what conditions the first protective measures against silicosis were instituted. In 1923, the Rand gold mines of Transvaal, South Africa, were supplying over 50 per cent. of the world’s gold output. Between 1911 and 1923, these mines produced on the average of $100,000,000 worth of gold every year. Hence, according to Pancoast and Pendergrass, authorities on silicosis, the legislative bodies could not overlook the necessity for compensation and protection for workers engaged in an industry which yielded such overwhelming profits to the capitalists. Even with the half-way protective measures used in these mines, the incidence of silicosis dropped to one-third of its former frequency in a very short time.

Any program that aims at protecting the workers from silicosis must be based on the following procedure:

1. To keep the dust particles produced down to a minimum quantity in the atmosphere. Dry drilling, which is the greatest danger in mining and quarrying, should be prohibited by law. All pneumatic drills should be equipped with an axial water feed which wets the dust right at its source and prevents it from rising. These drills must also have a suction apparatus similar to a vacuum cleaner which is capable of drawing off any excess silica dust released. Spraying the air for the purpose of keeping down the dust and hastening the settling of that which is circulating in the air is a commonly employed measure. Besides being futile, this is positively dangerous. Many investigators have shown that the water droplets in the air make it easier for the dust particles to enter into the lungs. Spraying the atmosphere was condemned at the International Conference on Silicosis in 1930.

2. To allow the dust to settle as much as possible before it can be inhaled. Enormous quantities of dust are stirred up by blasting. All blasting should be restricted in time to the end of working shifts so that workers will not enter the area of the blast until a sufficiently long period has elapsed for the dust to settle and for the enclosure to be ventilated properly.

3. To remove rapidly the dust-laden atmosphere instead of allowing it to remain stagnant. This is best effected by exhausting the dust laden air and replacing it with new fresh air.

4. To separate the particles from the air before they gain entrance to the lungs. Masks or respirators are very effective for this purpose, and, though they are extremely important and indispensable, they are not a final safeguard. To allow the dust to remain suspended in the air and merely supply masks is like neglecting to drain a mosquito-infested swamp and providing instead enough quinine to control the malaria which the mosquitoes spread. This is not to say that masks are not of great value, but all precautions–wet drilling and suction, restriction of blasting to the proper time, and proper ventilation–must be taken in conjunction with the use of masks to gain the maximum protective results.

Proper Medical Care

In addition to these mechanical protective measures, proper medical supervision must be established to prevent the spread of tuberculosis from the silicotic worker so afflicted to his uninfected co-worker by immediate retirement of the afflicted worker to a sanitorium. All prospective workers should be X-rayed before being put to work at a dusty trade and frequently repeated X-ray examinations should be made to detect any beginnings of silicosis. No worker who has, or has had, tuberculosis should be employed at a dusty trade both for his own health and for the health of his co-workers. Honest and efficient medical boards must be provided in all states to regulate and enforce public health and hygiene measures in the dusty trades. The medical profession which, in the main, is not aware of the nature of this insidious disease and its alarming frequency, must be educated to be on the alert for its earliest diagnosis. Employers must be forced to recognize sources of danger to the workers and to eliminate them where they exist. Such a program, can reduce this avoidable evil to an absolute minimum.

In the United States, with the exception of very few states, there are no laws covering the compensation of workers who contract silicosis. The enforcement of hygienic management of mines and factories where silica dust is a major hazard is corrupted by bribery of public health officials by mine and factory owners to whom profits are much more important than the lives of the workers. Only with the enforcement of public health legislation, inspired, administered and controlled by workers, will the disease, silicosis, a pernicious outgrowth of capitalist negligence and exploitation, be liquidated.

Health was the precursor to Health and Hygiene and the creation of Dr. Paul Luttinger. Only three issues were published before Health and Hygiene was published monthly under the direction of the Communist Party USA’s ‘Daily Worker Medical Advisory Board Panel’ in New York City between 1934 and 1939. An invaluable resource for those interested in the history history of medicine, occupational health and safety, advertising, socialized health, etc.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/health/v1n1-apr-1935-health-hygiene.pdf