Connecticut western news., 1880-04-07
A STRANGE DISEASE.
The Terrible Malady Which Attacked
 the Miners of St, GOthard.

The Terrible Malady Which Attacked
 the Miners of St. Gothard.
 The G05ettG Pien1ontese gives some interesting particulars concerning the health of the men employed in St. Goth- ard Tunnel, of the unfavorable condi- tions in which they are compelled to work, with special reference to a disease engendered by the presence in the in%es- tines of anamalcule having a certain resemblance to trichine. The general appearance of the St. Gothard miners, particularly of those of them-and they are the majority-afected by the malady in question, is described as deplorable in the extreme. Their faces are yellow, their features drawn, eyes half closed, lips discolored, the skin is humid, and the gait difficult If they eat with appe- tite they cannot digest, and, when wine is taken it is invariably rejected. Let 8 man be as strong as he may, three or four months work in the tunnel seriously injures his health, and at the end of @ year, or little more, he is confirmed invalid.
 Prof. Calderini, of Parma, and Bozzolo and Paghani, of Turin, have made sev- eral visits to Airolo for the purpose of studying the disease on the spot They state that 70 to 80 per cent. of the men are suffering from this complaint, to which they give the name of anea1aia 1'akyzostona0, @ term derived from the worm found in the intestines of miner who died in the Turin Hospital last year A somewhat similar malady, arising from the presence of the a,ak;yloston1a in the intestines, is epidemic in Egypt and Brazil. Thirty per cent. of the cases are classified as "severe," and among the men who. have wrought in the tunnel a year or more, 95 per cent. are affected: For boys from IA to Is, many of whom, as I can personally testify, are employed in the tunnel, the professors stigmatize it as Ca veritable he'll" continuous labor in its pestiferous atmosphere being al- most certain death for the young. Prof. Bozzolo is of opinion that ten hours spent in the tunnel are sufficient to bring about condition of body favorable to the de- velopment of aaaenai0 a7akylostonaa.
 The disease, though it has probably prevailed more or less for years, has only shown itself to an alarming extent dur ing the last six months. Several causes have contributed to produce this result The distance of the points of attack, as the extremities of the galleries where the perforatOrs were at work have been called, from the respective entrances Con the north side nearly five miles), rendered ventilation extremely diffcult-an evil which has increased by the occasional freezing of the compressers. The air thus insufficiently renewed was further vitiated by the perpetual explosions of dynamite, of which the consumption has been at the rate of 66O pounds day, the smoke from 400 to 800 oil lamps, and the exhalations from the bodies of 400 men and 40 horses. Add to this that like number of men and horses have been working night and day in each section of the tunnel for years, and there is an en- tire absence of sanitary appliances, and that the temperature has averaged from 80 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, and we have state of things as inimical to life and health as can well be conceived. Of this the mortality among the horses affords ample proof.
 They are kept in the tunnel only eight hours out of the twenty-four, yet they generally dropping down dead as if struck by bullet-at the rate of 25 per cent. per month that is, the average duration of equine life in the St. Gothard Tunnel has been exactly four months As most of the miners employed in the tunnel are Piedmontese, the Italian pro- fessors, from whose report I have quoted some of the foregoing statements, natu- rally enough call the attention of their Government to the facts disclosed there in, and claim their interference on be- half of the men. It is only fair, how ever, to mention that the Swiss papers contest the accuracy of some of their conclusions, and, while admitting that the tunnel is by no means pleasant place to work in, they affirm that things are not nearly so bad as Profs. Bozzolo and Pagliani make out, and that the figures which these gentlemen give with reference to the prevalence of diseases among the men require confirmation. Be that as it may, you could not pass seven or eight hours inside the tunnel, before the boring was completed, with out suffering both at the time and a&ter- ward considerable inconvenience, if not something worse, and on leaving it your feelings would not improbably resemble those of the Austrian journalist who, after similar experience, telegraphed to his paper: ''I have been in the St. Go- thard Tunnel, and I am ''glad to inform you I have come out alive"
 WHAT WAS FoUND.-James Lynde, g | Confederate dasnrtar who oftarwar6 on.