Silicosis historical perspective
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Despite the fact that the term "silicosis" would not be widely used in the United States until after 1915, dust had been long recognized as a problem for hard-rock miners, cutters, potters, buffers, glass workers, sandblasters, and foundry workers [3]. Since antiquity, observers had recognized that workers developed serious breathing problems when they inhaled the dust of certain rocks and minerals. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, doctors and laymen alike had accepted dust as a source of phthisis or, more commonly, consumption, chronic lung conditions that affected broad cross-sections of western European and American society. For the previous two centuries, this condition was the single greatest cause of death in Europe and America. Despite the great attention to epidemics of smallpox, cholera, or typhoid, consumption was "the great white plague" that threatened "the very survival" of European and American society. The symptoms of wasting away, coughing, spitting, and weakening might appear in victims from various classes and social strata.