Montana labor news., 1938-04-21
DEATH BY M|(R0NS
BY W. C.
as told to Richard Lake.

by 1t. Recent dispatches have CEN
tered the worlds interest in Fred
Smite, dying by inches in an iron
lung. A friend, a mining engineer,
who for than 20 years has
worked in the smallest and the
hugest Of mines up and down west
ern North America from Alaska to
Mexico, is dying by microns. Hard
rock miners of his type are often
called "twenty-minute eggs" but it
isn't because he's so tough that he
is dying by such exquisitely small
fractions. A micron is about 1/25,000
Of an inch in dimension; the smallest
air cells of the lungs r about three
microns across. Average rockdust
particles encountered in mines are
from almost nothing to about eight
microns across.
1t is plain he has ~silicosis. He is
in the same boat with the man who
has 'potter's asthma" "sandblaster's
disease" "stonecutter's rot" and
other Affections less obviously dis
tinguished. The fine dust of size
three microns or less has lodged in
the air cells of his lungs. The
particle irritates the tissue, is often
partially dissolved, releasing poisons.
1t causes an encystment, as would a
splinter in his finger. The lung cell
then dies. If the body would now
disregard that area entirely instead
of trying to restore it, serious COM
plications could be avoided. But no:
the white corpuscles, 3 to 10 mi
erons across, rush in to wrap them
selves around the foreign object and
try to drag it to the blood stream.
When magnified, the dust particle
is seen to be almost incredibly
Jagged and sharp, resembling a
splinter of glass. The white cor
puscles, failing to force it through
the tissues, pile up on each other in
concentric layers around the dis
solving particle. Nodules are formed,
and Joined by the fibrosis known as
scar tissue, choking and rendering
useless healthy cells and many thou
sands Of the small blood vessels
which carry the body's oxygen.
Your miners lungs become less and
less able to completely empty them
selves. From a healthy organ they
turn into a gristly, seeping mass of
injecting media, which may and
often does disable other organs.
Handbook mining is no soft game.
My friend has seen what happens
when a comrade sinks his pick into
a charge of dynamite which has
failed to detonate from a previous
shift. Once in Idaho he saw a
swinging cable on which a cage of
men was being lowered jerk loose
a large shaft timber on the 100-foot
level. The huge stick, turned sud
denly into a bolt of black lightning,
smashed into the cage of men at the
800-foot level, making hash of all.
More spectacular accidents happen
every year. Often these teach valu-
able lessons in preventions; some
times they r unpreventable. Sill
COSTS, which infects approximately
one in four among men who engage
in metal and mineral industries, is
entirely wasteful, teaches nothing,
and is almost wholly preventable.
And yet, although we know that
our s~ilicosis rate is huge in the United
States compared with it's almost non
existence in Canada and Mexico, we
know next to nothing about its
prevalence. In 1928-29, the U. S.
Bureau Of Mines with the aid OF
several mining companies and the
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co..
conducted a clinic in the Tri-State
District (portions of Kansas, Mis-
souri,, and oklahoma for metal
miners. OF 1922 men examined, il
was found that 24,8 per cent were
infected. In 1882, the Department
Of Labor and Industry in Pennsyl-
vania examined 2,711 men, and
found % per cent of them silicotic
1t is not perhaps too hazardous to
assume that these districts are fairly
representative of U. S. mining local.
ties. Once it is assumed, a glance
at the 1929 Decennial Federal Cen
sus, showing 1,17O,0O0 workers ex-
posed to the dust hazard in metal
and mineral industries, gives us our
inkling as to the silicosis prevalence
II.
About IL years ago, l was sitting
one morning on the dump at the
portal Of a small mine talking with
the foreman, while about twenty
men were coming on shift from diff
ferent directions. We were talking
about silicosis coughs. The fore
mans ears perked up.
Il can call 'em off by their
coughs" he said, not looking at me.
THAT sharp cough is Ole Feddeson;
that dull sort of a snort is Tom
Williams; the muffled bark is Lee
Terry-he tries to smoke and cough
at the same time; and the raspin'
one j" The foreman named off
eight men, and l checked them in
my mind; and as each came on the
dump, the foreman called him by
the name he had given me. In no
case was he wrong. Six years later
| sat on that dunn again; and only