THE HYGIENIC CONDITIONS OF COAL MINES.

Press, Volume XXXI, Issue 4264, 29 March 1879, Page 3

THE HYGIENIC CONDITIONS OF COAL MINES.

Some interesting information as to the way in which the human system i* affected under the peculiar conditions of work in mines has recently been furnished by Dr. Fabre, from experience connected with the mines of Commentry, Allier, iv Prance. The deprivation of solar light causes a diminution in the pigment of the skin and absence of sun-burning, but there is no globular arsmia— i.e., diminution in the number of globules in the blood. Dr. Fabre infers this from some 400 experiments in which the globules were counted in the microscope by a well-known method. It might be thought this absence of true anaemia might be accounted for by the men being out of the mine fourteen hours out of the twentyfour, and all day on Sunday. But it is found that the blood of horses in tho mine is quite similar in number ef globules to that of horses al • c ground, having similar work and food, and these animals are kept in the mine* all the year round, except when they are brought up once a year for the general inventory. Internal maladies seem to be more rare, and surgical more frequent in the horse* underground than in those above. While there is no essential anemia in the miners, the blood-globules are often foand smaller and paler than in normal conditions of life. Thi* is due to respiration of noxious gaeea, especially where ventilation is difficult. The want of oxygen is in the air, which doe* not Supply enough of itto the globules, whereas in globular anemia the globules are too few to bring enough oxygen to the tissue*. The horses do not show the kind of antemia observed in miners, because they work in large and well ventilated passages.- The incressa of atmospheric pressure in the Commentry mines i* not such as to cause any appreciable physiological disorders, and the ventilation prevent* accident* from confined air. The moisture, whioh is generally excessive in mines, does not incommode or act injuriously on the miners so long as the temperature does not exceed 25 deg., but when this is exceeded they are very quiokly fatigued, and cutaneous eruptions often appear, on them. In tbe spontaneous combustions which frequently occur in the mines, the men frequently work in rapidly successive relays to confine the fire and they experience little more than muscular fatigue, If the air'has been pretty pure. The most frequent irrespirable gases are carbonic acid (abundant in these mines), carbonic oxide, ammoniac gas, carburets of hydrogen, and (where the coal contains much iron pyrites) Bulphurous and sulphydrio acids. These are mostly well carried off by ventilation. : The men who breathe too much the gases liberated on explosion of powder or dynamite suffer more than other miners from affection* of the larynx, the bronchia, and tbe stomach.. Ventilation sometimes work* injury by its cooling effect. Bronchitis is extremely common among the coal miners, also vesioular emphysema, these affections being aggravated by the coal dust. On the other hand, pulmonary phthisis seems to be very rare. In six years Dr. Fabre did not meet with more than two cases of death from this cause, among 1800 miners. It appears generally that working in the mines of Commentry is rather laborious than unhealthy; it is certainly not to be compared with those frequent operations in which powder containing lead or mercury is breathed.